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Four arrested over Sydney murder of Scottish millionaire
Four men have been arrested in a series of raid across Sydney over the murder of Scottish millionaire loan shark Michael McGurk last year.
By Bonnie Malkin in Sydney
Published: 5:17PM BST 13 Oct 2010
Michael McGurk was shot dead in Sydney in 2009 Photo: AFP/GETTY
Mr McGurk, 45, was shot dead with a single bullet to the back of the head as he got out of his Mercedes-Benz outside his home in the affluent northern Sydney suburb of Cremorne on Sept 3 2009. His 10-year-old son witnessed the murder. Police have been investigating the killing for more than a year, and on Wednesday arrested four men aged between 60 and 20-years-old. Two of the men have since been charged with murder.
The others were charged with soliciting murder and being an accessory before and after the fact. Detective Inspector Mick Sheehy said that the motive for Mr McGurk's murder was "financial" and that he expected more arrested to be made. Since his death, Mr McGurk, who emigrated to Australia from Scotland in 1993 and also reportedly used the name Michael Rushford, has been linked to an alleged $150 million (£93m) mortgage fraud racket involving hundreds of Sydney homes.
He was well-known to police as a lender of "last resort" and a standover man with a reputation for violence. A man with a colourful past, he once sued the Sultan of Brunei, one of the world's richest men, for allegedly breaking a pounds6 million deal to buy a rare miniature Koran from Mr McGurk's company, Garsec.
Shortly before his death he was cleared of firebombing two houses and assaulting two men. Before he was killed, Mr McGurk told a journalist he had a secret tape that implicated New South Wales MPs in corruption, but the claims were never proven. Mr McGurk had made many enemies and believed he had a price on his head after a series of business disputes. He was also millions of dollars in debt.
