60 Minutes confront fugitive Michael Hunt in the US. Courtesy: Channel Nine.

ONE of Australia’s most wanted fugitives, Michael Hand, has been found alive in a small American town by Nine’s 60 Minutes.

On Sunday night’s program, 60 Minutes reporters tracked down Hand and filmed him emerging from a chemist.

#60Mins reveals Michael Hand’s false identity, used to fool Australian immigration and escape the country. #60Mins pic.twitter.com/2LNoNZFHZe — 60 Minutes Australia (@60Mins) November 8, 2015

Hand has been wanted in Australia since he vanished in 1980. His disappearance coincided with the collapse of the Nugan Hand bank (co-founded by Hand), and the death of his business partner Frank Nugan.

The bank, which was over $50 million in debt at the time of its collapse, wasn’t a bank at all, according to 60 minutes. “It was more like a laundry for dirty money. Drug money,” says reporter Ross Coulthart. A royal commission into the bank also found evidence of illegal tax avoidance schemes and extensive violations of banking laws.

Neil Evans, who ran the Thailand branch of the bank, told 60 Minutes in 1981 that every cent that went through Nugan Hand was “drug money”.

Authorities, it seemed, turned a blind eye to what was going in within the walls of the bank.

When approached by a 60 Minutes reporter in the US, Hand refused to speak and drove away.

60 Minutes was tipped off by author Peter Butt, who revealed Hand’s location in his new book Merchants of Menace.

Hand is reportedly now living under the name Michael Jon Fuller in the small town of Idaho Falls in Idaho.

Michael Hand has been presumed dead for 35 years. That is, until #60Mins caught him in his tracks. https://t.co/qDiIDMktU6 — 60 Minutes Australia (@60Mins) November 8, 2015

On 60 Minutes, Butt said Hand had been living in the United States as a “protected species” since he vanished from Australia.

“The fact that Hand has been allowed to live the free life in the United States suggests that he belongs to a protected series, most likely of the intelligence kind

“An intelligence document I found places Michael Hand back working for the CIA in Central America 18 months after his disappearance,” Mr Butt said.

Mr Butt says a simple background check by the FBI would have revealed that Michael Fuller’s social security number is allegedly the same one that was allocated to Michael Hand in New York in 1960.

He believes that Hand, who is a former US Special Forces soldier, has been protected since he left Australia in 1980.

“Hand now manufactures tactical weapons for US Special Forces, special operations groups and hunters,” Butt says. The weapons, he claims, are designed for combat similar to that which Hand experienced in Vietnam in 1965.

Hand was recognised for his service to the US military with a Distinguished Service Cross, which garnered him attention from the CIA.

Butt said he intends to inform the authorities of Hand’s whereabouts and will also provide them with the details he has unearthed through his research.