In 1966, with a small group of grifters, Australian swindler Robert 'Skip' Gardner crossed the Tasman to pull off one of the biggest swindles in New Zealand history.
His incredible tale, which features corrupt Sydney cops, scams in multiple jurisdictions, and even a brush with the Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs, is neatly wrapped up in Scott Bainbridge's new book The Fix: The Story of New Zealand's Biggest Swindles.
Photo: Supplied
In the 1960s, the only place in New Zealand you could buy cosmetics was in a pharmacy or supermarket that was open Monday to Friday, Bainbridge tells Kathryn Ryan.
Dairies were open seven days a week, though, and Gardner and his associates got the idea of manufacturing cheap cosmetics to be sold in local neighbourhoods.
The scheme involved manufacturing their own cosmetics and marketing them as Hollywood-style products available at low prices.
“I would compare it to a $2 shop cosmetic that’s been marketed as something quite expensive", Bainbridge says.
It ran a bit like a pyramid scheme – potential 'agents' were told the cosmetics brand had been successful overseas, and a factory was about to open in Auckland.
All they had to do was get the cosmetics stocked in their local dairies.
“It wasn’t a lot of work you needed to do and so it attracted a lot of would-be investors or people who wanted their own little business.”
Ads ran in newspapers and at movie theatres brought in a lot of people and money, Bainbridge says.
But as the launch day neared, the cosmetics failed to materialise.
“It could have legitimately worked but these guys had no intention of it working.”
Gardner and his associates, Noel, Warren and Peggy, had never planned to actually open a cosmetics factory.
In fact, Gardner wasn’t even his real name – it was one of about 17 names Skip used as he made his way around the world working similar schemes.
It was the name he was using in Australia, where he ran a used car company – a legitimate business for which Noel and Warren were his two best salesmen.
“They felt like New Zealand was easy pickings, the idea was to come across, get as much money as they can and then leave and try it elsewhere.”
Here in New Zealand, the men ran their cosmetics scheme out of an office in Parnell.
But it wasn’t long before the police received phone calls from suspicious investors. Even the office workers thought it was odd that the company launch date kept getting pushed out further and further.
One night, Noel was instructed to remove all of the company documents from the safe, put them in a briefcase and chuck it off the Harbour Bridge, weighed down by a brick.
He did as he was told but made one key mistake - he forgot the brick.
"Back in the 60s, if you were ever arrested for being drunk you were sent over to the ‘inebriates islands’ (Rotoroa Island) in Hauraki Gulf and the Salvation Army would pick you up to take you to court.”
The next morning, as the Salvation Army barge steamed under the Auckland Harbour Bridge, the captain happened upon the suitcase floating on the water.
In the meantime, Noel and Gardner didn’t show up for work and the office workers became suspicious. They broke into the safe and called the police.
Peggy and Warren were arrested but Gardner and Noel had already skipped town and flown to Australia, where Gardner was looked after by one of the most corrupt police officers in Sydney at the time.
But it wasn’t long before long Gardner left for the United States and started another import car business – and another scheme.
It took two years to arrest Gardner and have him extradited to New Zealand – after he had eluded the FBI, Interpol, the Royal Canadian Mounties and Scotland Yard.
By this time, he was in England, doing what he did best.
“[After his arrest] he tried to pass off that he had a heart condition and couldn’t fly back, he wanted to come back by boat. He actually even offered to pay the extra.”
It took Gardner mere minutes to bribe the captain, it was thought.
"He got a two-year sentence here in New Zealand and he even managed to get that shortened by telling the prison warden at Mt Eden that he’d heard there was a rumour that there was a gun in Mt Eden jail. The warden panicked and Gardner said, ‘Look I’ll sort it out’.
“He managed to get a gun smuggled in himself and then presented it to the warden to say, ‘Hey I’ve found your gun’.”
Gardner got six months shaved off his prison sentence.
The last variable sighting of Gardner that Bainbridge could find was in Uruguay where he tried another similar scheme alongside some local revolutionaries.
"The revolutionaries in 1971 blew the prison and he was the only lucky gringo to be seen jumping over the wall with all of these revolutionaries”.
From there, Gardner made his way to Brazil where he tried to sell a business idea to the "Great Train Robber" Ronnie Biggs.
It’s rumoured that eventually, he made his way back to New Zealand and lived the rest of his life under yet another false identity.
