A former financial adviser has been sentenced to seven years' jail after appearing in Queensland's Maroochydore District Court on a range of charges brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) including forgery, using forged documents and fraud.
The former planner, Darren John Wise, pleaded guilty to each of the charges which related to his conduct between between 23 October 1997 and 10 March 2006, when, as a financial adviser at Kawana Waters in Queensland, he:
- Created six applications for margin loans on which he forged eight of his clients' signatures, the effect of which was to represent that the clients had agreed to act as guarantors for the margin loans;
- Used the false margin lending applications with the intention of fraudulently inducing the lender to provide him margin loans; and
- On 67 separate occasions gained a benefit for himself by fraudulently lodging securities owned by clients as collateral for the margin loans without the clients' authorisation.
According to the charges, Wise dishonestly obtained a total of $1,070,700 under the margin loans as a result of his misapplication of client assets and used the money for his own purposes including trading in securities on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) for himself, paying for losses in other trading accounts he held, and paying off personal debts.
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