Mr Thanh Tu, 38, has been sentenced to nine-and-a-half years' imprisonment for bilking investors out of approximately $9 million by misleading them and, in some cases, giving them false certificates of investment in the style of Charles Ponzi (pictured).

Earlier, in November, Mr Tu had pleaded guilty to 33 counts of fraud and 21 counts of fraudulent falsification of records. He was then remanded in custody. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission conducted the investigation that unmasked him.

ASIC alleged that between September 2008 and September 2013, Mr Tu (who was an employee of Patersons Securities in Brisbane), dishonestly induced 18 separate private investors to invest about $9 million by misleading them and giving some of them false certificates of investment in the fictitious Paterson Securities – API Protected Fund and the equally fictitious Patersons Securities Capital Protected Fund.  

Tu did not invest the money into secure investments as directed but instead fraudulently redirected the funds, through a number of different accounts, to a personal trading account he held with another organisation. Then, for his own purposes, he traded the money in risky investments and ultimately lost a total of $8,120,073.53 of the original capital. A total of $959,000.00 was recovered.

During the offending period, Tu made “interest” payments to some of the clients, which were funded through money provided by other clients and not through investment profits made by the defendant. In this sense it was a typical Ponzi scheme.