George Speight is a criminal who enticed 20 NSW investors into handing
$700,000 to an illegal pyramid-selling scheme, State Parliament was told
yesterday.
The Minister for Fair Trading, Mr John Watkins, said the leader of the coup
in
Fiji was the "middleman" for the principal of the Queensland-based
Wattle
Group, Geoffrey Dexter. The group, which was wound up in 1998, "fleeced
$165 million from Australian families".
Mr Watkins said 406 Sydney people and 145 rural investors, mainly from the
North Coast, lost up to $21 million when the scheme collapsed.
"Today I can reveal he [Dexter] was closely associated with the infamous
George Speight who is trampling on democracy in Fiji," Mr Watkins said.
"When he lived in Brisbane, Speight referred 20 people to the Wattle Group
and
they invested $700,000. However, Speight creamed off 2per cent off the top for
his work as the middleman. That criminal got away scot-free."
When the Wattle Group collapsed, investors referred by Speight received 4c
in
the dollar "if they were lucky".
Dexter will appear in a Brisbane court on June 22 in a prosecution brought
by
the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, Mr Watkins said. "It's
frightening to think that pyramid schemes are run by people like George
Speight."
- Linda Doherty
This text may have been edited to protect the writer.
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