Op de Facebook-pagina van een slachtoffer staat deze tekst waarbij de schrijver een link legt tussen Michael Jon Hand (CIA) en Flannery via wat knip en plakwerk van het internet:
Michael Jon Hand (born December 8, 1941, New York City) is a US ex-Green Beret known for co-founding the Nugan Hand Bank. Returning to Sydney in March 1976, Hand developed "a close business and social relationship with Murray Stewart Riley, a former policeman turned criminal patron of leading Australian criminals. Within a month of his arrival, Hand began transferring cash to Nugan Hand's Hong Kong branch on Riley's behalf. Australian police later concluded that "Throughout 1976 Hand was knowingly involved in drug activity with the 'Riley' group in that he permitted and even encouraged the use of Nugan Hand facilities for the movement of 'drug' money."
Following the June 1976 incorporation of a bank branch in the Cayman Islands, Hand moved to Hong Kong in October 1976 to develop the international side of the bank, developing a network of 12 branches across three continents. In 1977-8, as the bank expanded dramatically, Houghton was able to use his connections to bring a range of US military and intelligence figures to the bank. This expansion and influx of links coincided with the collapse of the CIA-linked Castle Bank & Trust in the Bahamas. In August 1977 Hand moved from Hong Kong to Singapore, from where he managed Nugan Hand's international operations until its collapse in 1980.
Murray Stewart Riley: The Woodward Royal Commission into Drug Trafficking (1977–79) accused Riley of being involved in importing heroin from Bangkok in 1977. A 1982 Joint Taskforce on Drug Trafficking found that he had carried out five successful heroin importations in 1976. These events related to Riley's involvement with the Nugan Hand Bank. Riley failed to appear at the enquiry after police conveniently failed to find him. This "failure" is consistent with the opinion of Evan Whitton (1986), who used additional research from Bob Bottom to outline Australia's "criminal milieu", which consists of inter-related and overlapping criminal syndicates and their support group consisting of politicians, police, lawyers, businessmen, accountants and the judiciary.
In 1983 the comfortably incarcerated Riley was declared bankrupt, owing $132,497 to Nugan Hand Bank (in liquidation). He was released in May 1984, having served less than six years of his seventeen-year sentence, when the NSW government introduced new prisoner parole legislation.[34] Soon after his release, Riley began collaborating with gunman Arthur Stanley (Neddy) Smith and pilot Peter David Johnstone to fly about 50 kilograms of heroin from Papua New Guinea for distribution in Australia
Neddy Smith: Arthur Stanley "Neddy" Smith (born 27 November 1944) is an Australian criminal and crime writer who has been convicted of drug trafficking, theft, rape, armed robbery, and murder. On 24 June 2010 Australian true-crime series Tough Nuts: Australia's Hardest Criminals on the Crime & Investigation Network (Australia) channel, Stan "The Man" Smith was named as Flannery's killer!