A group of investors who were victims of the Trio Capital fraud have alleged the incompetence of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) allowed criminals to operate in the Australian financial system without being pursued.
The Victims of Financial Fraud (VOFF) have criticised ASIC for not questioning the alleged perpetrators of fraud after $194.5 million disappeared from the Trio Capital Limited scheme.
The Trio scheme had underlying funds in the Caribbean (undisclosed) such as the Exploration Fund. The group referred specifically to one of the directors of Trio’s underlying funds, Carl Meerveld, who returned to the English Channel island of Guernsey in 2008 from Hong Kong. In 2016, he was elected deputy of the states of deliberation in Guernsey.
VOFF said ASIC knew of Meerveld’s involvement in the Trio scheme but believed they did not have the power to investigate him as he was outside of their jurisdictions.
“But VOFF and the citizens of Guernsey have found new information showing Mr Meerveld’s role in the Trio Capital fraud involving transactions that took place in 2009 whilst he was in Guernsey; those being the contractual obligations of Global Financial Managers Ltd to transfer $AU57 million from a BVI [British Virgin Islands] company to the Exploration Fund in July 2009,” the group said.
“These securities disappeared from the Exploration Fund between that time and the time that the administrator gained access to the assets of the Exploration Fund in 2010.”
The group said it believed Meerveld could be questioned for all actions that he or a company he was managing director of such as Caribbean island company in St Lucia, Global Financial Managers, on his involvement in these transactions while he was a resident in Guernsey.
“VOFF would very much like to know what happened to the AU$57 million once it had been transferred to the safekeeping of Global Financial Managers Ltd. This new information presents a real opportunity for Mr Meerveld’s questioning under Clause 11 of the Fraud (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 2009,” the group said.
“The ordinary people that present the new information call on the Australian and Guernsey authorities to proactively intervene and protect Guernsey citizens from potentially falling victim to a potential fraud by a suspected fraudster who is currently operating in an influential government position in Guernsey and also dispel the fear and anxiety held by people in Australia, that are mandated into superannuation.”
