'Crocodile Dundee' hunts missing $34 million

AUSTRALIA: "Crocodile Dundee" star Paul Hogan has taken legal action in a US court to recover US$34 million held in a Swiss bank account which he alleges has been misappropriated, reports said Monday.

The Australian, who was catapulted to stardom by the success of the 1986 film about the laconic, knife-wielding crocodile hunter, says his once-trusted tax advisor has disappeared with the cash. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Californian district court documents allege Philip Egglishaw "absconded with or spent all" of Hogan's millions, in a filing by the actor's representative, Schuyler "Sky" Moore.

The money was held at the Corner Bank in Lausanne, run by the Geneva firm Strachans which was retained to arrange a series of offshore trusts dealing with his lucrative Crocodile Dundee earnings, The Australian newspaper said.

Egglishaw was a partner at the firm.

Last year Hogan confidentially settled an eight-year long dispute against the Australian Tax Office allegedly worth millions of dollars.

The authorities had been pursuing him and his collaborator John Cornell for more than Aus$150 million ($156 million) in allegedly unpaid taxes, penalties and interest stretching back to the 1980s.

Egglishaw was reportedly the mastermind behind the tax evasion scheme and an arrest warrant is current against him relating to these charges.

Hogan's US lawyer Craig Emanuel told the Herald: "For a variety of ethical reasons, I am not available to comment on your inquiries."

The actor's Australian lawyer, Andrew Robinson, declined to comment on the case to The Australian newspaper.

AFP