Ex-SAS man Mike Neal and partner John Bonner, a former rugby team-mate, have set themselves up as Australian crime fighters.
From their noisy nerve-centre next to a Gold Coast, Queensland, shopping complex they offer to take on con-men, shonky franchisers, angry husbands and street muggers.
They call themselves The White Knights; and their operations have been blessed by mayors, the police, and the powerful Australian Securities Commission. 'We have,' said greying Neal, an ex-farmer who got ripped off, 'a community protection organisation.'
At his elbow stands an expensive video camera and a loud hailer. 'Mediation is our objective,' he stresses. 'But if all else fails we go in with the camera and the hailer and expose. The video film is welcomed by television channels.'
The Gold Coast has more rich people to the square foot than any other city in Australia. Its balmy weather, pristine beaches and sophistication, attract the retired, the successful, the innocent elderly widow - and those who hungrily prey on them. Enter the British White Knights team: numbers a close secret, weapons: the martial arts and public exposure.
Not long after Mike Neal arrived in Australia he became involved in a scheme to recycle grain. His Army discipline, and quiet but direct demeanour, made him a natural spokesman for the 800 shareholders who had lost $4.2m in a fraud. 'One of the cowboys who ripped us off did a runner,' he says, sucking on his cigarette, 'and took off for the Philippines.'
Neal lost $25,000 on fruitless legal action, but learned, in the process, about the workings of the national fraud watchdog, the Australian Securities Commission. When he emerged, financially bruised, he said he recognised "that there is a need out there for more direct action."
People who climb the stairs to the Knights' office today, have been burned like him. Men and women with superannuation lump sums, retirement funds, or money in the bank from selling their homes in Sydney and Melbourne; and who have lost most of it. 'We are looking after a female television personality who came up here from the south and invested $500,000 in a franchise. She lost it all. Her husband is now a recluse and she is in her early 60s and struggling financially. Some franchises are excellent. But there are people out there who see franchising as an open cheque-book.'
Couples who have been 'taken' are offered a broad spectrum of instant action: solicitors' advice, accountancy, mediation - and if all else fails the public exposure of the miscreant. Clive, a burly security officer sitting quietly in a corner admits it's sometimes dangerous. 'I had a death threat last night. A guy on the phone just said: "You're dead."
'We are first of all a listening post,' explains Mike Neal. 'People today are lost in the complexity of the law. Regulatory bodies are swamped; they haven't the resources to cope. People in business find it difficult to get justice; people in trouble can't get legal aid. We discovered a niche where we could help circumvent the high cost of legal representation and assist the client to mediation, or how to get help from the appropriate regulatory body.'
The Gold Coast is Australia's top tourist strip and attracts criminals who make a living preying on its gullible visitors. (A non-English speaking tourist was charged $50 by a pedicab driver for a lap of one block). The White Knights stand ready to remedy rorts and even to provide the burly Clive as a bodyguard if a visitor is fearful of exploring the glitzy bars alone at night.
The Knights' have just set up Multi Travel Services, in the wake of the New South Wales backpacker murders in which five Europeans and two Australians were killed in a state forest. John Bonner, its director, says: 'The murder hunt attracted world-wide publicity that was not good for Australia. It dramatically illustrated the problem of communication between parents and their children setting out to see the world.
'The backpackers often fail to write or to telephone and the parents have no idea where they are in such a vast country like Australia. The German parents of one murdered backpacker had no-one to contact after her daughter had failed to telephone, so the trail went effectively cold for six weeks.
'We have set up a complete service to obviate this concern. For a membership fee of $155 we will monitor the tourist's movements across Australia. Kids arriving here have no idea of the distances and remoteness of this country. So we will be a watchtower. The traveller calls in regularly, on a free call, with his or her own password. He tells us where he is at the moment and what his travel plans are for the week ahead. We log this into the computer. The parents can phone us from anywhere in the world if they have not heard from their son or daughter and we act in loco parentis. If the traveller hasn't logged in the following week, we start making enquiries, at that stage without panic and without alerting the parents. If we can't find them on the network we take the appropriate steps.
'We can arrange for tourists to share cars or take buses with others; how to behave in the outback, how to drive properly in the relevant conditions. We entice them to see the real Australia which is off the beaten track, but to do it under our watchful eye.'
Multi Traveller Services goes so far as to seek medical histories (of allergies and blood type) addresses and phone numbers of doctors and dentists.
In a single year, almost 2.5 million overseas visitors spent over $4.25 billion in Australia. Of those, almost 1.78 million were independent travellers.
The White Knights are on their way to Britain, Ireland, Germany and New Zealand in January to explain their service to intending backpackers and their parents. Why should they have confidence that the system will work? 'The British,' says Mike Neal evenly, 'have a certain air of integrity that inspires confidence.'
With the formidable Clive sitting nearby, nobody was going to argue.
