Australia Australia - Marion Barter, 51, missing after trip to UK, Jun 1997 #2

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Been thinking about the Southport RSL mentioned in a most excellent post in thread 1 from Jenmarshnifer, Jun 4, 2019 #197 - says Marion did line dancing at the RSL. Did Marion have a membership card there or need to sign in every time? If they still have the sign in books maybe she went there on occasions with the "Mr Remakel", or whatever he called himself, was thinking a check could be done of who she signed in with, maybe Remakel's "real name" would be there, or the actual Remakel name. Or maybe he had a membership there. Just a thought. Also maybe a name of a passenger seated with Marion on the flight matches a name she signed in with at the RSL. End of Thursday morning random. Ooh, the post 197 also mentions Marion wore a beret before leaving for holiday and spoke some French with the children. All completely interesting.
Found a 1998 website for the Southport RSL:
18 May 1998 - - Archived Website - Trove
 
the connection to the name and Luxembourg may have come from a third party, and have absolutely nothing to do with Marion personally. ETA- it would make more sense if she didn't want to be found to have a name with no connection to herself, to make it harder to track. To have Marion in there somewhere is smart, incase some over attentive customs officer hears her refer to herself as Marion "Oh, Marions one of my middle names, I usually go by that name." Just to cover any slips.
That's an excellent point. A name with no connection to Marion would leave no obvious link to follow
 
My first time posting in this thread...

This is a curious case. There are so many pieces that don’t quite fit. From my point of view, I can understand why the police came to determine that Marian chose to start a new life in 1997, but given the time that has passed with no further evidence of Florabella being out there somewhere accessing her superannuation, aged pension, and Medicare, I question what has happened after the bank accounts were stripped.

I speculate (and I could be totally wrong) that in or before 1997, Marian met a man who became her new romantic partner. Marian was at a very vulnerable period in her life. Her work environment was toxic, I remember that some people told the podcast that possibly she had had an unrequited affection for one of the father’s of her students. Marian may have seen this new relationship as the one bright light in her life. This man may have been a controlling individual who prevailed upon her to keep their relationship a secret, not with threats of violence but using other forms of coercion eg. “I can’t be with you if you tell your family about me. Why do you want to spoil it? What we have is special.” If Marian places great importance on this romantic relationship, this coercion will work because keeping the relationship is feels vital to her wellbeing. Marian might believe that she needs this relationship but subconsciously recognises it is unhealthy and her behaviour indicates stress.

This eventually leads to the perpetrator persuading Marian that they should go away together, that they should start new together , that everything will be okay if it’s “just them” and no one else. This happens over time. Marian, who is desperately unhappy at work, possibly with some strained family relationships (at least with her son), starts to find this idea attractive. She loves the man and she commits to the plan, but she can’t commit all the way at first. She’s still in contact with Sally and sending post cards. But eventually, when overseas on holiday with this man, she is persuaded to give up contact for good. After all, she is the happiest she’s ever been when with him. Doesn’t she want to stay happy? She cuts off contact and she starts withdrawing money at the behest of this man, and transferring it to him or an account he can access. This is wants she wants too, he has convinced her. But once the money is under his control, his behaviour changes and now there is no way out.

All speculation of course, but I think a man is at the heart of this. I cannot see Marion leaving everyone behind to be Florabella on her own. She has left her life to be with someone who has convinced her that her happiness lies with him.

Good observations sunnybree. I agree I dont think Marion would walk away from her life to be alone and i think she would have needed help to manage what she did. I think there was a man involved (the one in the car!) but from what we've heard in the podcast I think his role was conspirator/partner not perpetrator.

I know Sally perceives her Mum as nieve/gullible but this could be because Marion (being her Mum) either didnt share or was vague about certain things with her. I obviously dont know Marion but I think she presents as rather savvy relationship wise. From what we're told Marion didnt mould herself to her partner or change aspects of herself to accommodate them, she had independant pursuits and when she was unhappy she didn't go to great lengths to save the relationship, she left and didnt want to maintain contact.
 
Been thinking about the Southport RSL mentioned in a most excellent post in thread 1 from Jenmarshnifer, Jun 4, 2019 #197 - says Marion did line dancing at the RSL. Did Marion have a membership card there or need to sign in every time? If they still have the sign in books maybe she went there on occasions with the "Mr Remakel", or whatever he called himself, was thinking a check could be done of who she signed in with, maybe Remakel's "real name" would be there, or the actual Remakel name. Or maybe he had a membership there. Just a thought. Also maybe a name of a passenger seated with Marion on the flight matches a name she signed in with at the RSL. End of Thursday morning random. Ooh, the post 197 also mentions Marion wore a beret before leaving for holiday and spoke some French with the children. All completely interesting.
Found a 1998 website for the Southport RSL:
18 May 1998 - - Archived Website - Trove

Great find Itsapuzzle!! Those social networks Marion had would be a great source of information. I wonder if any of the line dancers were also part of the art group??
 
Great find Itsapuzzle!! Those social networks Marion had would be a great source of information. I wonder if any of the line dancers were also part of the art group??
Yes Intrigued, the social network is the key ... the person who introduced Marion to the mystery Macca's man was a friend from the Arts Centre ... why haven't they come forward? Maybe they're not around any more, of course, many years have passed - but still, someone knows something. And yes, maybe the line dancers were involved in the Arts Centre too, or would have valuable information. Is The Lady Vanishes on twitter, that thing flings out tweets out all over the place, maybe a tweet about anyone who met Marion at the Arts Centre/RSL , got no idea about tweeting, hee, but may lead to something, who knows .... probably already been done though. Ah well, there it is Intriguedbyintrigue, such a mystery.
 
Found a web page link for the Gold Coast Arts Centre if anyone's interested in what it was all about back around 1997 when Marion was attending.
15 Jun 1998 - Welcome to the Gold Coast Arts Centre - Archived Website - Trove
Wonder if Marion had a Friends of the Gold Coast Arts Centre Membership, quite possibly did.
PS: Oh boy, haven't web pages come a long way over the years, hey, such a blast from the past to look back at them. Ah ..... I love Trove, can't stop pokin' around in there :)
Re Twitter, the times I've searched there I haven't found much re The Lady Vanishes.
I would have thought more people would be talking about it there.
Thanks Tootsie, that's interesting . And Sally mentioned the mother of a child in Marion's 95/96 reception class (in Conversations 15) and she was quoted as saying, "I had no idea this was happening, I was really good friends with your mum'", so news of the search for Marion hasn't reached everyone who could have vital information, it seems. They've done the national newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, Facebook, local papers, put up flyers, can't do much more I reckon - so, I guess what's left is to go through lists .... very time consuming ... or wait for someone to come forward with a lead to crack the case.
 
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Hi everyone, long time lurker, first time poster.

I have a few questions -

1. Does anyone know what year the the Armidale teachers college closed? I am aware from the podcast and from reading back through this thread that the Armidale tip was originally called in in 2003 (I hope thats correct). I know this is probably a crazy theory, but, what if she wasn’t properly qualified (and/or her qualification needed to be updated or something like that) and she went back to the Armidale teachers college under a different name and there met with foul play. I like you, Mel1303 have issues with what college she went to and why there is a discrepancy, just a weird feeling. Probably a crazy thought but anyway!


2. Is the FTRA triggered by withdrawals as well as deposits? Usually when I’ve heard about the FTRA and Austrac reporting its been to do with people depositing money into accounts, not withdrawing it. But the legislation does say that its for cash transactions so that would cover withdrawals too right? Unless she meant to just keep money in cash, wouldn’t depositing money into another bank or account trigger a report to Austrac even if the amounts she deposited into new accounts was under 5k at a time? They look for split payments too don’t they? So strange, this FTRA stuff makes my head hurt when I think about it in too much detail. Also, if she withdrew a heap of money and then if she/or someone else attempted to leave the country with it in cash without declaring it, unless the bag was searched at random, they perhaps could have gotten out of the country with the cash that way… I'm probably just overthinking the FTRA stuff tbh.

3. I know it was discussed here earlier but I just wanted to touch on the passport thing. The podcast said that she flew back into Australia on the Florabella passport. Sally says that her friend in customs told her the date she came back into Australian. BUT how could her friend have looked this up when she didn’t know about the Florabella name change until years later when Gary Sheehan took over? Was it to do with the alias name on the bottom?

4. Would it have been possible at all for her to have gotten a passport issued by the UK or even Luxembourg? I wonder how involved the process would have been for applying for a spouse visa for either of those places back then. My original thoughts have always been that she 1. changed her name to Florabella as a placeholder name to buy some time for her disappearance then 2. had plans to marry someone overseas 3. came back to Australia and applied for a spouse visa for either the UK or maybe Luxembourg and then 4. applied for a passport issued by the other government after that. But after looking into the UK process I don’t think she would’ve been able to do it. If the Florabella passport doesn’t leave the country again, how could she have possibly gotten overseas again? Is it confirmed that there were no further name changes?

Also, one further thing I wanted to say - If I was putting an ad in a newspaper looking to date someone, I would NOT use my real name! Remakel would have arguably been a name a lot of people in Luxembourg would have heard because of his soccer career, I feel there surely is a Luxembourgish connection somewhere but am HIGHLY doubtful it has anything to do with Ferdinand. Along the same vein, its not unlikely that Marion just heard the name Remakel via soccer connections and maybe she liked the sound of the name, without even meeting Ferdinand at all.

One more thing - has anyone ever heard of the Cornelia Rau case? Essentially, a lady was quite mentally unwell and assumed the identity of a German national on holidays in Australia, she gave two named to authorities, neither of which were her real name. She also had someone else’s Norwegian passport and was then detained in a detention centre for 10 months. It was later uncovered that she was mentally unwell and was actually Australian (thats a very rough summary so I hope its accurate enough). I’m sure we would know if Marion ended up in a detention centre but maybe there are some parallels with Cornelia’s case?

Thanks for reading all of my thoughts!
 
Hi everyone, long time lurker, first time poster.

I have a few questions -

1. Does anyone know what year the the Armidale teachers college closed? I am aware from the podcast and from reading back through this thread that the Armidale tip was originally called in in 2003 (I hope thats correct). I know this is probably a crazy theory, but, what if she wasn’t properly qualified (and/or her qualification needed to be updated or something like that) and she went back to the Armidale teachers college under a different name and there met with foul play. I like you, Mel1303 have issues with what college she went to and why there is a discrepancy, just a weird feeling. Probably a crazy thought but anyway!


2. Is the FTRA triggered by withdrawals as well as deposits? Usually when I’ve heard about the FTRA and Austrac reporting its been to do with people depositing money into accounts, not withdrawing it. But the legislation does say that its for cash transactions so that would cover withdrawals too right? Unless she meant to just keep money in cash, wouldn’t depositing money into another bank or account trigger a report to Austrac even if the amounts she deposited into new accounts was under 5k at a time? They look for split payments too don’t they? So strange, this FTRA stuff makes my head hurt when I think about it in too much detail. Also, if she withdrew a heap of money and then if she/or someone else attempted to leave the country with it in cash without declaring it, unless the bag was searched at random, they perhaps could have gotten out of the country with the cash that way… I'm probably just overthinking the FTRA stuff tbh.

3. I know it was discussed here earlier but I just wanted to touch on the passport thing. The podcast said that she flew back into Australia on the Florabella passport. Sally says that her friend in customs told her the date she came back into Australian. BUT how could her friend have looked this up when she didn’t know about the Florabella name change until years later when Gary Sheehan took over? Was it to do with the alias name on the bottom?

4. Would it have been possible at all for her to have gotten a passport issued by the UK or even Luxembourg? I wonder how involved the process would have been for applying for a spouse visa for either of those places back then. My original thoughts have always been that she 1. changed her name to Florabella as a placeholder name to buy some time for her disappearance then 2. had plans to marry someone overseas 3. came back to Australia and applied for a spouse visa for either the UK or maybe Luxembourg and then 4. applied for a passport issued by the other government after that. But after looking into the UK process I don’t think she would’ve been able to do it. If the Florabella passport doesn’t leave the country again, how could she have possibly gotten overseas again? Is it confirmed that there were no further name changes?

Also, one further thing I wanted to say - If I was putting an ad in a newspaper looking to date someone, I would NOT use my real name! Remakel would have arguably been a name a lot of people in Luxembourg would have heard because of his soccer career, I feel there surely is a Luxembourgish connection somewhere but am HIGHLY doubtful it has anything to do with Ferdinand. Along the same vein, its not unlikely that Marion just heard the name Remakel via soccer connections and maybe she liked the sound of the name, without even meeting Ferdinand at all.

One more thing - has anyone ever heard of the Cornelia Rau case? Essentially, a lady was quite mentally unwell and assumed the identity of a German national on holidays in Australia, she gave two named to authorities, neither of which were her real name. She also had someone else’s Norwegian passport and was then detained in a detention centre for 10 months. It was later uncovered that she was mentally unwell and was actually Australian (thats a very rough summary so I hope its accurate enough). I’m sure we would know if Marion ended up in a detention centre but maybe there are some parallels with Cornelia’s case?

Thanks for reading all of my thoughts!

Hi Mjjj14!
FTRA covers all transactions over 10k (reported by the financial instituation). Marions 5k withdrawals dont meet the threshold so wouldnt be automatically reported.
If Marion was depositing the money into an account same day, the transactions in total would meet the threshold, however i dont think they would be identified as a split payment because the two accounts wouldnt have the same TFN (Florabella doesnt have one). Where there are multiple transactions (one after the other) that in total exceed the 10k threshold the bank could report them as a single transaction, but Marion's withdrawals were on different days so i believe they would be considered separate transactions. I dont think a series of consecutive sub-threshold transactions over time is required to be reported - that doesn't mean there isn't a mechanism to identify them though.
 
Hi everyone, long time lurker, first time poster.

I have a few questions -

1. Does anyone know what year the the Armidale teachers college closed? I am aware from the podcast and from reading back through this thread that the Armidale tip was originally called in in 2003 (I hope thats correct). I know this is probably a crazy theory, but, what if she wasn’t properly qualified (and/or her qualification needed to be updated or something like that) and she went back to the Armidale teachers college under a different name and there met with foul play. I like you, Mel1303 have issues with what college she went to and why there is a discrepancy, just a weird feeling. Probably a crazy thought but anyway!


2. Is the FTRA triggered by withdrawals as well as deposits? Usually when I’ve heard about the FTRA and Austrac reporting its been to do with people depositing money into accounts, not withdrawing it. But the legislation does say that its for cash transactions so that would cover withdrawals too right? Unless she meant to just keep money in cash, wouldn’t depositing money into another bank or account trigger a report to Austrac even if the amounts she deposited into new accounts was under 5k at a time? They look for split payments too don’t they? So strange, this FTRA stuff makes my head hurt when I think about it in too much detail. Also, if she withdrew a heap of money and then if she/or someone else attempted to leave the country with it in cash without declaring it, unless the bag was searched at random, they perhaps could have gotten out of the country with the cash that way… I'm probably just overthinking the FTRA stuff tbh.

3. I know it was discussed here earlier but I just wanted to touch on the passport thing. The podcast said that she flew back into Australia on the Florabella passport. Sally says that her friend in customs told her the date she came back into Australian. BUT how could her friend have looked this up when she didn’t know about the Florabella name change until years later when Gary Sheehan took over? Was it to do with the alias name on the bottom?

4. Would it have been possible at all for her to have gotten a passport issued by the UK or even Luxembourg? I wonder how involved the process would have been for applying for a spouse visa for either of those places back then. My original thoughts have always been that she 1. changed her name to Florabella as a placeholder name to buy some time for her disappearance then 2. had plans to marry someone overseas 3. came back to Australia and applied for a spouse visa for either the UK or maybe Luxembourg and then 4. applied for a passport issued by the other government after that. But after looking into the UK process I don’t think she would’ve been able to do it. If the Florabella passport doesn’t leave the country again, how could she have possibly gotten overseas again? Is it confirmed that there were no further name changes?

Also, one further thing I wanted to say - If I was putting an ad in a newspaper looking to date someone, I would NOT use my real name! Remakel would have arguably been a name a lot of people in Luxembourg would have heard because of his soccer career, I feel there surely is a Luxembourgish connection somewhere but am HIGHLY doubtful it has anything to do with Ferdinand. Along the same vein, its not unlikely that Marion just heard the name Remakel via soccer connections and maybe she liked the sound of the name, without even meeting Ferdinand at all.

One more thing - has anyone ever heard of the Cornelia Rau case? Essentially, a lady was quite mentally unwell and assumed the identity of a German national on holidays in Australia, she gave two named to authorities, neither of which were her real name. She also had someone else’s Norwegian passport and was then detained in a detention centre for 10 months. It was later uncovered that she was mentally unwell and was actually Australian (thats a very rough summary so I hope its accurate enough). I’m sure we would know if Marion ended up in a detention centre but maybe there are some parallels with Cornelia’s case?

Thanks for reading all of my thoughts!

Hi Mjjj14 and welcome!
My thoughts to your questions
1. I too would like to know/have proof of her teaching degree. Will try to find out when it closed.
2. Sorry can’t help with that one !
3. I think this has been discussed on here, possibly both names go on a passport?
4. Yes I was wondering if Marion’s parents or grandparents came from England, she would be able to reside there legally.

All of these questions reflect back to why? My own gut feeling stems back to something going on at the school she worked at, perhaps she knew too much and was intimidated/threatened.
The Lost Boy of TSS gives an insight into abuse that was happening there...
Lost Boy Of TSS
 
Hi Mjjj14!
FTRA covers all transactions over 10k (reported by the financial instituation). Marions 5k withdrawals dont meet the threshold so wouldnt be automatically reported.
If Marion was depositing the money into an account same day, the transactions in total would meet the threshold, however i dont think they would be identified as a split payment because the two accounts wouldnt have the same TFN (Florabella doesnt have one). Where there are multiple transactions (one after the other) that in total exceed the 10k threshold the bank could report them as a single transaction, but Marion's withdrawals were on different days so i believe they would be considered separate transactions. I dont think a series of consecutive sub-threshold transactions over time is required to be reported - that doesn't mean there isn't a mechanism to identify them though.


Ahh, that does make sense. I didn't even consider the TFN. Surely though, wouldn't a bank still flag multiple 5k transactions (as in total they all add up to being far in excess of the reportable limit, over a short space of time)? Maybe at the time that scenario didn't fall under something that would be Austrac reportable so she was able to do it easily.
 
Hi Mjjj14 and welcome!
My thoughts to your questions
1. I too would like to know/have proof of her teaching degree. Will try to find out when it closed.
2. Sorry can’t help with that one !
3. I think this has been discussed on here, possibly both names go on a passport?
4. Yes I was wondering if Marion’s parents or grandparents came from England, she would be able to reside there legally.

All of these questions reflect back to why? My own gut feeling stems back to something going on at the school she worked at, perhaps she knew too much and was intimidated/threatened.
The Lost Boy of TSS gives an insight into abuse that was happening there...
Lost Boy Of TSS

Thanks for the welcome!

It's really strange that the podcast didn't ever properly clarify this college point. Perhaps they don't know or as someone else previously mentioned, perhaps the production team like to leave in ambiguous details to spark audience interest.

After thinking on the passport thing a bit longer, yes, the other name would have to be connected in the system because as a previous poster said, if alias names weren't connected, those with criminal records could then just change their names and gain entry into places they otherwise wouldn't have been able to.

If she could stay there legally due to relatives that would explain one part of it, but she would still need to apply for and be granted citizenship before she could apply for a UK passport, at least thats my understanding of the current process to obtain a passport in the UK. I have no clue what the process might be in Luxembourg though. If its true that she really didn't leave the country again on that passport and if its true that she had no further name change, then she either stayed in Australia or left illegally.
 
Hi everyone, long time lurker, first time poster.

I have a few questions -

1. Does anyone know what year the the Armidale teachers college closed? I am aware from the podcast and from reading back through this thread that the Armidale tip was originally called in in 2003 (I hope thats correct). I know this is probably a crazy theory, but, what if she wasn’t properly qualified (and/or her qualification needed to be updated or something like that) and she went back to the Armidale teachers college under a different name and there met with foul play. I like you, Mel1303 have issues with what college she went to and why there is a discrepancy, just a weird feeling. Probably a crazy thought but anyway!


2. Is the FTRA triggered by withdrawals as well as deposits? Usually when I’ve heard about the FTRA and Austrac reporting its been to do with people depositing money into accounts, not withdrawing it. But the legislation does say that its for cash transactions so that would cover withdrawals too right? Unless she meant to just keep money in cash, wouldn’t depositing money into another bank or account trigger a report to Austrac even if the amounts she deposited into new accounts was under 5k at a time? They look for split payments too don’t they? So strange, this FTRA stuff makes my head hurt when I think about it in too much detail. Also, if she withdrew a heap of money and then if she/or someone else attempted to leave the country with it in cash without declaring it, unless the bag was searched at random, they perhaps could have gotten out of the country with the cash that way… I'm probably just overthinking the FTRA stuff tbh.

3. I know it was discussed here earlier but I just wanted to touch on the passport thing. The podcast said that she flew back into Australia on the Florabella passport. Sally says that her friend in customs told her the date she came back into Australian. BUT how could her friend have looked this up when she didn’t know about the Florabella name change until years later when Gary Sheehan took over? Was it to do with the alias name on the bottom?

4. Would it have been possible at all for her to have gotten a passport issued by the UK or even Luxembourg? I wonder how involved the process would have been for applying for a spouse visa for either of those places back then. My original thoughts have always been that she 1. changed her name to Florabella as a placeholder name to buy some time for her disappearance then 2. had plans to marry someone overseas 3. came back to Australia and applied for a spouse visa for either the UK or maybe Luxembourg and then 4. applied for a passport issued by the other government after that. But after looking into the UK process I don’t think she would’ve been able to do it. If the Florabella passport doesn’t leave the country again, how could she have possibly gotten overseas again? Is it confirmed that there were no further name changes?

Also, one further thing I wanted to say - If I was putting an ad in a newspaper looking to date someone, I would NOT use my real name! Remakel would have arguably been a name a lot of people in Luxembourg would have heard because of his soccer career, I feel there surely is a Luxembourgish connection somewhere but am HIGHLY doubtful it has anything to do with Ferdinand. Along the same vein, its not unlikely that Marion just heard the name Remakel via soccer connections and maybe she liked the sound of the name, without even meeting Ferdinand at all.

One more thing - has anyone ever heard of the Cornelia Rau case? Essentially, a lady was quite mentally unwell and assumed the identity of a German national on holidays in Australia, she gave two named to authorities, neither of which were her real name. She also had someone else’s Norwegian passport and was then detained in a detention centre for 10 months. It was later uncovered that she was mentally unwell and was actually Australian (thats a very rough summary so I hope its accurate enough). I’m sure we would know if Marion ended up in a detention centre but maybe there are some parallels with Cornelia’s case?

Thanks for reading all of my thoughts!
Nice to have you onboard Mjjj14, welcome - whoa, just familiarised myself with the story of Cornelia Rau .... oh boy, what a story .... had never heard of the Kenja sect but I have to say my interest has been piqued .... oh my, they work in the same way as scientology, hey, find out your biggest secrets then blackmail you with it .... I'm going to research more on this, thanks for sharing the info.
Found this re the teacher's college:
"The Armidale College of Advanced Education, formerly the Armidale Teachers' College, was established in 1971. T he College continued to train teachers but also began to offer courses in other areas. In 1989 the Armidale College of Advanced Education became part of the University of New England." H'mm, not sure that really answers the question, looks like the wheels were in motion for change in 1971 and it was official in 1974 .....
HIGHER EDUCATION ACT, 1969.—NOTIFICATION - Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales (Sydney, NSW : 1901 - 2001) - 29 Nov 1974
Just re the financial queries, the FTRA things ..... I know nothing of finances, but do you reckon it would indicate Marion was with someone with a financial background/occupation, to do the withdrawals that way? I don't know, maybe Marion was a financial whiz, haven't heard about that side of things, but is that something the average person would know, back in the day, 1997? I know I wouldn't. Cheers
 
Ahh, that does make sense. I didn't even consider the TFN. Surely though, wouldn't a bank still flag multiple 5k transactions (as in total they all add up to being far in excess of the reportable limit, over a short space of time)? Maybe at the time that scenario didn't fall under something that would be Austrac reportable so she was able to do it easily.

I regularly go into our local Wespac branch and deposit large amounts of cash into my employers bank account (well over $10k at a time) and as long as I bring my ID (drivers licences, passport etc) and fill out the form, nobody ever questions me further than that. I think as long as Marion was adequately identified at the bank as the account holder, she could have withdrawn whatever she wanted.
 
I'd really like to know more about this man. It surprises me so little attention is given to tracking him down (by the podcast). They went all the way to Luxembourg to confront someone on a fairly slim possibility but have practically ignored someone actually seen with Marion shortly before she disappeared.
Marion said he was from the art centre. Did Marion have a membership there or visit often? She was clearly attending the art centre until just before she left Aust. Other patrons of the art centre might have had friendships with Marion or know who the tall man might have been.
I have wondered if perhaps Marion hid the mans identify from Sally because he was married. This may have prevented him from coming forward in the intervening years. He might also have been someone connected to her new life and she wanted to keep him separate/unaware of her old life.
EXACTLY!!!
 
I regularly go into our local Wespac branch and deposit large amounts of cash into my employers bank account (well over $10k at a time) and as long as I bring my ID (drivers licences, passport etc) and fill out the form, nobody ever questions me further than that. I think as long as Marion was adequately identified at the bank as the account holder, she could have withdrawn whatever she wanted.

Those transactions you do on behalf of your workplace are still reported to AUSTRAC, the regulator, as all cash transactions 10k and above are. AUSTRAC then decides to investigate further if they see fit from my understanding. Because your business transactions are standard business dealings, there wouldn’t be any investigation done.

I do know that the laws about cash reporting changed in 2011, I’m not sure what the law was pre-2011.
 
Ahh, that does make sense. I didn't even consider the TFN. Surely though, wouldn't a bank still flag multiple 5k transactions (as in total they all add up to being far in excess of the reportable limit, over a short space of time)? Maybe at the time that scenario didn't fall under something that would be Austrac reportable so she was able to do it easily.
I dont think theres any accumulative requirement with the reporting. It's common for people to make frequent large withdrawals after the proceeds of the sale of a property have gone into their account. As long as you're identified you can have your money how/when you like.
 
I dont think theres any accumulative requirement with the reporting. It's common for people to make frequent large withdrawals after the proceeds of the sale of a property have gone into their account. As long as you're identified you can have your money how/when you like.

I think you’re right, in all honesty I think the FTRA is more concerned with cash deposits, especially to international accounts. After all, it’s main purpose is to stop money laundering and tax evasion.

Just re the financial queries, the FTRA things ..... I know nothing of finances, but do you reckon it would indicate Marion was with someone with a financial background/occupation, to do the withdrawals that way? I don't know, maybe Marion was a financial whiz, haven't heard about that side of things, but is that something the average person would know, back in the day, 1997? I know I wouldn't. Cheers

Puzzle, you’re so right, I heard about the FTRA act very briefly at university, if I didn’t come across it then, I certainly wouldn’t have known about it either! Ahh! It’s such a bizarre part of this puzzle. The more I think about FTRA, the more it seems Marion would’ve been able to simply take her money out and place it into another location (provided it was within Australia) with really no red flags being raised anyway.

On another note, I have been researching how to obtain Luxembourgish citizenship in the event of marriage. The laws were revamped in 2017, so far I’ve only gotten my head around the current laws and not the past ones. Currently, you have to do a citizenship course, pass an oral exam and be married or have been married for 3 years prior to the application if you do not live in Luxembourg. I would really like to find out what the requirements for naturalisation in the event of marriage were in 1997 (proving difficult so far). Hypothetically, if the stuff she put on the incoming passenger card was true and she was married, she would’ve likely been able to get a Luxembourgish passport, meaning she could’ve left the country again after all.

Sorry for all my posts today, I’ve been stuck down the rabbit hole of this case!
 
Nice to have you onboard Mjjj14, welcome - whoa, just familiarised myself with the story of Cornelia Rau .... oh boy, what a story .... had never heard of the Kenja sect but I have to say my interest has been piqued .... oh my, they work in the same way as scientology, hey, find out your biggest secrets then blackmail you with it .... I'm going to research more on this, thanks for sharing the info.
Found this re the teacher's college:
"The Armidale College of Advanced Education, formerly the Armidale Teachers' College, was established in 1971. T he College continued to train teachers but also began to offer courses in other areas. In 1989 the Armidale College of Advanced Education became part of the University of New England." H'mm, not sure that really answers the question, looks like the wheels were in motion for change in 1971 and it was official in 1974 .....
HIGHER EDUCATION ACT, 1969.—NOTIFICATION - Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales (Sydney, NSW : 1901 - 2001) - 29 Nov 1974
Just re the financial queries, the FTRA things ..... I know nothing of finances, but do you reckon it would indicate Marion was with someone with a financial background/occupation, to do the withdrawals that way? I don't know, maybe Marion was a financial whiz, haven't heard about that side of things, but is that something the average person would know, back in the day, 1997? I know I wouldn't. Cheers
Yep, in the 1970's all the teachers colleges became independent of the dept of education, with Colleges of Advanced Education taking over offering training to teachers, nurses, before university training took over in the late 80's.
https://education.nsw.gov.au/about-...ols/media/documents/teachers_education_AA.pdf
Armidale teachers college do not have records on line, but they do have a history group known as the Friends of the Teachers College, who have an archives room open from 2-4 on weekdays.
FOTC Armidale | Friends of the Teachers College
I will try to get there soon.
 
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