Australian police are planning to come to Phnom Penh to help local police still stumped by the murder of an Australian lawyer, a senior Interior Ministry police official said Monday.
“We welcome cooperation with the Australian experts,” said Colonel Mao Dara, chief of the ministry’s criminal office.
There are still no leads in the March 24 slaying of Max Green, despite the 26-man team assigned to the case, Mao Dara said.
The Australian Embassy in Phnom Penh said they had not been notified of the impending arrival of the investigators.
Green was found in his VIP room in the Hotel Sofitel Cambodiana with his head bashed in. He had also been strangled with a necktie, police said.
Police investigations in Australia revealed that Green cheated some of Melbourne’s financial elite out of millions of dollars through a complex tax deferral and investment scheme.
The Melbourne Age daily newspaper reported on its Web site, The Age, last week that police traced most of the $24 million Green had diverted overseas.
Green had claimed the money came from investments in a Laos gem mine, The Age reported.
Green’s death has launched a maze of complex and costly legal actions by aggrieved investors. Those who lost money in the scheme intend to launch a class action suit to recover their funds, according to The Age.
Last month, an Australian coroner ordered the man’s body exhumed to confirm his identity, despite a positive identification by the Australian Embassy here.
Just before Green was killed, the attorney had reportedly invested $1.4 million into a “Hitchcockian thriller” film called “Dead End,” which is being edited in Melbourne.
