A MAN searching for a huge cache of gold stolen by late Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos has been held on drugs charges in Australia after being released by Hong Kong authorities while facing similar charges.
In 1991, Reiner Jacobi was arrested in Hong Kong at the request of the United States Drug Enforcement Agency and was to be extradited to the US to face drug trafficking charges.
However, several months later, having been released on $150,000 bail, Jacobi, an Australian citizen, was freed by Eastern Court Magistrate Peter White.
The magistrate ruled that some evidence against him, though admissible in the US, was not admissible under Hong Kong's Rules of Evidence.
Jacobi claims to have located billions of dollars in gold stashed away by corrupt former Philippine strongman Ferdinand Marcos who diverted them from government accounts to Switzerland.
Jacobi was arrested on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, this month by federal police acting on a warrant issued by a Florida court claiming he was involved in a conspiracy to import hashish into the US between 1985 and 1986.
His bail application was refused on Tuesday and he was remanded in custody until his next appearance at Southport Court on the Gold Coast on August 19.