Search for missing millionaire Herman Rockefeller shifts to Facebook

Investigators trying to locate missing property investor Herman Rockefeller have turned to the internet to try and unearth fresh clues as to the millionaire’s whereabouts.

Police yesterday took control of Rockefeller’s Facebook page with the permission of his family, after the number of Facebook friends on his profile page leapt from just one before his disappearance on January 21 to 21 yesterday (before a few friends were subsequently removed).

According to a report in The Age, Senior Constable Julie Stanes of the Victorian Police’s Missing Persons Unit, urged friends to contact her on the site.

”His family and the Victorian Police are concerned for his safety and welfare and are hoping you might be able to help in locating him,” she said in a message posted on Facebook.

How hopeful the friends may be is unclear. One friend, a former South African business contact, says she hasn’t seen Rockefeller in years and another has admitted to being a complete stranger attracted by the media storm surrounding his disappearance.

Rockefeller, a prominent company director and property investor in Australia and New Zealand, returned from a business trip to Newcastle on Thursday evening, and was last seen leaving the car park at Melbourne Airport in his late-model Toyota Prius.

The Prius was subsequently found in the Victorian regional town of Ballan, west of Melbourne.

Two shopkeepers in the town of Gordon, not far from where the Prius was found, claimed to have served Rockefeller on January 25, but the sighting remains unconfirmed.

Rockefeller’s bank accounts and credit cards have not been touched since he disappeared.

Rockefeller has concentrated on the property sector in recent years, but his career includes stints as finance director at the Pratt family’s Visy Industries and New Zealand investment company Brierley Investments.