‘Mr Big’ head of a vast black market, drugs, prostitution and counterfeiting racked in Vietnam, is now on the run.

He fled from Saigon when investigations by both American and Australian armed forces got too hot for him.

His last action before he left Vietnam was to put a $40,000 price on the head of a man who had caused him much trouble – LTCOL John Bennett of the Australian Army.

He is an Army public relations officer who became involved in a network of international intrigue.

He was head of the four-man Australian Army team to investigate the Vietnam racket.

Today COL Bennett is back in his old office at Victoria Barracks, Melbourne, as Public Relations Officer for Army Headquarters, Southern Command.

He is settling back to life with his wife and three children at his home in Somers, near Hastings.

COL Bennett has told the full story of his adventures in Saigon to ‘The Sun Herald.’

It is the first time that an officer has ever been given permission to speak publicly on a Service investigation.

COL Bennett said that Mr Big is a fair-haired American civilian, aged about 45, of average height and build.

COL Bennett has pictures of Mr Big taken at a party without his knowledge.

COL Bennett spoke of an informer who died in an ‘accident’ involving a 20 ton prime mover vehicle.

Glamorous James Bond style women also fitted into the intrigue.

A woman who controlled prostitution and bargirls in the Saigon and Cholon areas could supply money for any illegal exercise at two hours notice.

She could also supply a constant stream of information about Servicemen.

Her beautiful bar girls had orders to have affairs with willing Servicemen.

The profits from their high-priced ‘Saigon tea’ – supposed to be whisky – and profits from prostitution were channelled back into the rackets.

Somewhere in this twilight world were two men COL Bennett especially wanted to

‘Tich’ and ‘Steve’ could have been any two of the 8000 Australian Servicemen in Vietnam.

‘Tich’ was believed to be responsible for opening bank accounts in Australia and shipping out from Vietnam $US10,000 a month through the Australian Forces Post Office.

It was alleged that he set up the Australian side of the black market operation in Saigon, organising the supply of goods to ‘Mr Big,’ who controlled companies, rackets, restaurants and brothels.

‘Steve’ was ‘Tich’s’ sidekick. He was said to have played a considerable part in black marketing and illegal currency deals.

Both men have since proved that they were innocent of any involvement with ‘Mr Big’ or his organisation – but the path leading to their identity unearthed vital clues to the rackets.

The story begins on the night of October 23, 1970, when an Australian civilian walked out of a rainy night into the headquarters of the Australian Force in Saigon with a 26 page document.

COL Bennett was called out of bed to see the man, who turned out to be an informer.

‘Under Vietnam law an informer is paid a good percentage of the goods seized by Customs and an even larger percentage of the fines,’ said COL Bennett.

‘And here was a racket estimated to be making $2 million a week profit.’

‘This informer and the men behind him, who were also Australians, had visions of becoming rich on the proceeds of a tip-off.’

The man allowed COL Bennett to read the document in which the names ‘Tich’ and ‘Steve’ appeared, listing their alleged connections with the rackets.

COL Bennett said: ‘The document suggested that Australians were playing a large part in illegal currency manipulations and the illegal purchase of luxury goods from the Australian forces’ concessionaire gift shop for resale on the black market.

‘In fact, we found out that Australians were buying goods with forged ration cards supplied by nationals from other countries, but they had no part in the reselling operation.’

‘The Australians were buying things like tape recorders, fridges and TV sets.’

‘The money was being obtained through the sale of stolen goods like petrol, liquor, food, toiletry items, military clothing and equipment, as well as through the manipulation of money exchanges.’

‘There was large scale pilfering at the wharves.’

‘On average, a fully laden semi-trailer or petrol tanker was hijacked from the military forces every day.’

‘The stolen goods were peddled on the streets of Saigon and the trucks were repainted.’

‘The fleet of ex-military vehicles legitimately rebuilt by the Vietnamese from the Ordnance depot scrap heaps and used commercially served to camouflage the stolen trucks and make them difficult to recover.’

Because COL Bennett was the only person who had seen the document, the Commander of Australian Forces in Vietnam, Major-General C.A. Fraser, ordered him to continue with discreet inquiries.

Soon he was exchanging information and ideas with the American Forces Criminal Investigation Division.

Two days later COL Bennett was joined by Australian Warrant Officer Frank Blunden, a man handpicked for his skill in criminal investigation.

WO Blunden, a Commonwealth policeman on loan to the Army was bodyguard to former Australian Prime Minister, the late Mr Harold Holt.

The two men together set about the task of finding ‘Tich’ and ‘Steve’.

They concentrated on ‘Tich’ because it appeared easier to find a man who might have that nickname than ‘Steve’.

He could either be a very small man, a very tall man, or ‘Tich’ could have some other association with his real surname.

From 8000 men, they were able to whittle it down to 16 possibles.

It was a matter of elimination in a search of service records which had to be done at night to avoid arousing suspicion and gossip among headquarters people.

During the day the investigators concentrated on learning more about ‘Mr Big’ and his activities. The document gave his address half a mile from headquarters.

They watched it to see if any known Australian servicemen called.

In the bars of Saigon investigators held several secret meetings with two Australian civilians, one whom had worked for ‘Mr Big’.

The other man was an English migrant who had served in the Australian Army.

Six days after the inquiry started COL Bennett and Mr Blunden felt they knew who ‘Tich’ was and began to follow him.

His job took him around Saigon which could have allowed him to act as courier and messenger for Mr Big.

In the meantime, investigators made another desk-work investigation into the drawing of pay and the sending home to Australia of postal orders.

‘About this time, we realised that ‘Mr Big’ was deeply involved with black marketing apart from the financial manipulation which we first suspected,’ COL Bennett said: ‘We had seen him but had not realised who he was. We knew he had two cars. One of them was a red sports car, which we saw at his house and outside several bars we visited while we were building up a picture of his operations and his connection with Australians.’

The next big break-through came on November 5 when ‘Tich’s’ picture from his pay book was identified by one of the Australian informers.

‘Tich’ was picked up on November 13. Under interrogation he admitted he knew ‘Mr Big’.

‘Tich’ met ‘Mr Big’ casually in a Saigon bar last June and they talked about sports cars. The charming, pistol-packing American allowed ‘Tich’ to drive his sports car.

They arranged other meetings. At the last meeting, ‘Mr Big’ talked for more than four hours about money, banking and his ‘business’ interests.

He told ‘Tich’ that he wanted to get money into Australia at the rate of $10000 a time in a similar way he was using with American servicemen who post money into banks in the US.

‘Tich’ was quizzed about Australian banking and the opening and operating of Australian bank accounts.

He was asked if he would open bank accounts for ‘Mr Big’ and buy Australian postal orders from the Australian Field Post Office.

‘Tich’ left saying that he would find out and let him know.

COL Bennett said: ‘’Tich,’ knowing that he was dealing with a big time operator who carried a pistol, became frightened at the last meeting with Mr Big and made no attempt to get the information he sought.

‘At the same time we were able to positively identify ‘Steve’ and eliminate him from the inquiry. We were now well into the investigation into large scale black marketing.’

As soon as ‘Tich’ was released, COL Bennett and WO Blunden went after two Australian servicemen they overheard talking in a bar the previous night about the check into service pay books.

These two men, still stunned by the swiftness with which they were marched into the investigation office, disclosed more details of the black market operation within the Australian force headquarters compound.

In fact, they were able to detail the method of buying and pick up, the amounts of commission paid to servicemen, and the destination of goods.

They told how the Australian Servicemen were paid $50 to buy refrigerators and TV sets and between $10 and $50 for tape recorders and other electrical goods.

They would get $50 for anything worth more than $100.

Australians moving in and out of the compound would be approached by Vietnamese – both military and civilian, to buy goods for them at the Australian Concessionaire gift shop.

As soon as the goods were off-loaded from the container, a military car would drive up and the goods would be quickly loaded aboard.

The Australian never touched the goods. The car disappeared from the compound as quickly as it arrived.

COL Bennett: ‘Just by accident I saw it happen twice. On the second occasion I timed the period the vehicle was at a halt. It took exactly four seconds.’

‘I checked on the car and found that it was on issue from the American motor pool to a Thai general.’

The men told COL Bennett and Mr Blunden that the goods were being delivered to a house down a narrow lane about two hundred yards from the compound.

COL Bennett said that as far as he could establish the house was owned by a senior officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and was occupied by a senior member of the Vietnamese police force.

‘The lane was so narrow we could never get near enough to keep watch on the house without being seen.’

From this interview the investigators were able to move in on several other soldiers. They also made a snap check on the gift shop records.

They discovered large and expensive items had been bought in the names of soldiers who did not exist.

They reported to General Fraser who put the probe onto the footing of a formal investigation.

This was done on November 18. By November 21, the two investigators were joined by Warrant Officer Alan Walker from Sydney and Warrant Officer Rowland ‘Bluey’ Thompson from Brisbane.

These two men were flown in from Australia at General Fraser’s request on their record as investigators.

Suddenly an Army probe into an internal matter took a dangerous turn.

The investigators were playing a cloak and dagger game with crooks who packed pistols into cigarette packets and carried rifles looking like umbrellas.

‘Mr Big’ was an American. His henchmen included trigger-happy American civilians who acted as bodyguards.

Mr Big operated three companies dealing in export-import.

The others had book shops, restaurants, night-clubs, bars and companies specialising in transport and shipping.

As well as black-marketing, gun-running, counterfeiting and narcotics smuggling, these men were manipulating currency on a grand scale.

They were giving Servicemen high exchange rates in Vietnamese piastres for Military Purchase Certificate US dollars.

The syndicates lost a little on the high exchange but amply recovered their losses by using the American service money to buy goods from service gift shops.

These were resold on the black market for at least three times their value.

Once ‘Tich’ and ‘Steve’ had been traced, Mr Big became a worried man.

Three weeks later an anonymous caller phoned the Saigon office of United Press International to say that ‘Mr Big’ had put a price of five million piastres ($40000) on COL Bennett’s head as retribution for having disrupted his organisation.

The irony of it all is that inside Saigon $25 will buy anyone a dead man and $50 will buy a man whose body is not to be found.

But ‘Mr Big’ has left Vietnam, with his crooked empire crumbling behind him.