Director of one of Australias' biggest ponzis jailed for 13 years
Chartwell's Hoy jailed for 13 years
March 23, 2011 - 11:25AM
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Graeme Hoy has been jailed over the collapse of Chartwell Enterprises.
Photo: Paul Rovere
The director of one of Australia's biggest Ponzi schemes, which collapsed owing investors $68 million, has been jailed for more than 13 years.
Graeme Hoy, 58, must serve a minimum of nine years after pleading guilty in the Victorian Supreme Court to 44 fraud-related charges after the 2008 collapse of the Geelong-based investment company Chartwell Enterprises.
He previously had pleaded not guilty to 204 charges and was expected to face trial.
His guilty plea followed Chartwell company secretary Ian Rau's jailing for 18 months in August after he pleaded guilty to eight charges.
Today, at a court sitting in the regional Victorian city of Geelong, Hoy was jailed for 13 years and nine months.
He must serve nine years before being eligible for parole.
Flamboyant businessman
Mr Hoy was known as a flamboyant Geelong businessman who developed a penchant for fine food, luxury cars and other people's money.
Hoy's former cohort, Ian Stewart Rau, is already in jail for his role in the demise of Chartwell, a company that falsely purported to trade in derivatives and other financial instruments but proved to be nothing more than a Ponzi scheme.
Chartwell promised investors it could generate returns of up to 80 per cent through a suite of canny investment strategies, a spiel that inevitably drew millions of dollars from unsophisticated investors.
As word of Chartwell's miraculous returns spread, funds poured into its coffers. However, when the company suddenly closed its doors in April 2008 in the midst of the global financial crisis, Chartwell's liquidators were besieged by angry investors seeking repayment of tens of millions of dollars.
It emerged that only a scraping of the funds received has been invested in financial products; the rest was siphoned out Chartwell's back door to meet the fanciful dividend payouts promised to original investors.
In a report last year to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the liquidators have declared there is no prospect of creditors getting anything back.
After courtroom examinations by the liquidators, in which Hoy compared himself to King Canute and Rau said he was merely a "bunny" acting on Hoy's directions, criminal charges were laid against the pair in August 2009.
Rau last year pleaded guilty to five breaches of the Corporations Act, plus charges of making and using a false document and obtaining property by deception.
In August, Justice Terry Forrest sentenced Rau to two years and seven months in jail and ordered that he serve a minimum term of 18 months. In his sentencing comments, Justice Forrest described Rau's actions as "disgraceful".
Chartwell's liquidator, Bruno Secatore, of Cor Cordis, last year clawed back $180,000 from two Chartwell investors who, in the weeks before the company collapsed, had demanded and received a refund. The $180,000 represented 50 per cent of what the two investors owed.
A third investor was asked to repay more than $286,000, but the liquidators were unable to proceed after learning that the entity that received the funds now had no assets.
AAP, with Leonie Wood, BusinessDay Chartwell's Graeme Hoy jailed for 13 years
Re: Director of one of Australias' biggest ponzis jailed for 13 years
:RpS_lol: His face reminds me Okosh(Mr dave...) :RpS_laugh:
Re: Director of one of Australias' biggest ponzis jailed for 13 years
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fgold
:RpS_lol: His face reminds me Okosh(Mr dave...) :RpS_laugh:
Do you have anything of actual value that is worthwhile to contribute to this forum dear, or is that the epitome of your abilities?
Re: Director of one of Australias' biggest ponzis jailed for 13 years
I will never understand for the life of me why people who start ponzis schemes think they can get away with it. I know why they start them, greed.
This person, well most people who start ponzi schemes have to know upfront, that it will fail and jail time will follow. The skill to sell is indeed a good skill, a skill a lot of up and coming businesses would pay good money for. The thing is for the greedy that is just not enough. What a shame that this person decided to be a criminal instead of using his skill to promote legal business.
What makes me angry is that in order to promote this illegal ponzi scheme, he had to look people right in the eye and lie to them with a smile on his face.
How disgusting is that?
Well Mr. Hoy, did you enjoy all your luxuries? Did you laugh inside as you were ripping people off?
I bet your not laughing now, are you?
Re: Director of one of Australias' biggest ponzis jailed for 13 years
Quote:
The director of one of Australia's biggest Ponzi schemes, which collapsed owing investors $68 million, has been jailed for more than 13 years.
His guilty plea followed Chartwell company secretary Ian Rau's jailing for 18 months in August after he pleaded guilty to eight charges.
Today, at a court sitting in the regional Victorian city of Geelong, Hoy was jailed for 13 years and nine months.
Sends a clear message that Australia is not the place to run such schemes :RpS_thumbsup:
