Kerry and Kay Danes
He took extended leave without pay in 1998 (aged 40) to try his luck in a civilian job in poverty-stricken Laos and enjoyed a relatively opulent comfortable expatriate lifestyle.
[6] Danes' online professional profile describes him as a Director of a private security company (with his wife), and "a specialist in risk identification and crisis management, governance, safety and business continuity planning" since January 2002.
In 1994, Bjarne (Bernie) Jeppesen (Denmark) and his wife Julie Bruns (New Zealand) founded Gem Mining Lao PDR (GML) with Lao-born American, Somkhit Vilavong.
They were granted a fifteen-year concession from the Lao government to mine at Huay Xai, a small city located in the north, which lies on the east of the Mekong just over the river border from Chiang Khong, Thailand near the Golden Triangle.
Security contractor Kerry Danes formally agreed to handle all affairs for GML prior to two of their founders fleeing Laos on 28 May 2000 to Bangkok, Thailand (and later Denmark).
[11] On 23 December 2000, Kerry Danes (aged 42) was seized in his Vientiane office by Lao secret police on suspicion of involvement in the theft of over $US6 million worth of sapphires and cash from a gem mine that he had been hired to secure.
The transfer occurred about the time authorities alleged that finished and rough-cut sapphires worth millions of dollars disappeared from the office of a mining company that Danes provided security for.
[16]: para 7 In June 2001, a Lao court convicted both Kerry and Kay Danes of embezzlement, tax evasion and destruction of evidence, sentenced each to seven years imprisonment, and ordered them to pay fines and compensation of $AUD1.1 million.
[15] In large part due to Laos's strong ties with Australia, coupled with the fact that Kerry Danes was still enlisted as a full-time non-commissioned officer in the Australian Defence Force, the pair received a formal presidential pardon on 6 November 2001, which absolved them of their convictions.
The Bodhi Tree concentrates on the main story of lawyer Max Green, Australia's biggest legal fraudster, who embezzled millions of dollars and was later murdered in Cambodia.
At the start of Chapter 1 of her third memoir Families Behind Bars: Stories of Injustice, Endurance and Hope (2008), Kay Danes writes that she was also a director of a bodyguard company based in Thailand at the time she was detained in Laos in 2000.
Danes also asserts that she had access to the King of Thailand's own personal bodyguards, and she would sometimes provide close protection services to employers of her husband's security company in Laos.
Opposite page 96 of her fourth memoir Standing Ground: An Imprisoned Couple's Struggle for Justice Against a Communist Regime (2009), Danes captions a picture of herself at Siem Reap airport on a covert surveillance assignment in 2000.
After the Australian government successfully negotiated a Lao presidential pardon in 2001 on their behalf, Kerry and Kay Danes returned to Australia with their monies intact.
Affected with post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic depression,[24]: para 4 Kay Danes released her first memoir Deliver Us From Evil: Bad Things Do Happen to Good People in 2002.
Her second memoir Nightmare in Laos : The True Story of a Woman Imprisoned in a Communist Gulag.Kay Danes has mentioned suffering from diagnosed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
[31]: para 7 [32][33] In October / November 2008,[20] while Warrant Officer Kerry Danes was on a tour of duty with the Australian Army, his wife Kay took the opportunity to visit Afghanistan from Australia and travel in a Toyota Hiace van through war-torn countryside as part of a small group of five mixed-gender Rotarians under United States Marine Corps protection.
[38] The same year, she left the workforce in Saudi Arabia to complete a Master of Human Rights degree online through Curtin University (WA), and to also take advantage of the travel opportunities of the Middle East.
Danes relocated to Australia in January 2015 and commenced research for a PhD (Law and Justice) two years later at Southern Cross University (SCU), City of Gold Coast, Queensland.
