Two operators of a Brisbane-based investment scheme have been sentenced to two of the biggest custodial sentences for defrauding investors in recent times after the pair were handed a collective 17 and a half years in the Supreme Court of Queensland.
Donna Tung Sing Ho and Mark Andrew Sweeney, who both ran the Queensland-based Bo Long Group and a number of its subsidiary companies, were handed nine and eight and a half year jail terms respectively following an Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) investigation.
“This sentence sends a very strong message that ASIC and the courts will not tolerate people who abuse investors’ trust and dishonestly use investor funds,” ASIC acting chairman Jeremy Cooper said.
The regulator alleged between August 1997 and January 2001 around $6.7 million of investor funds were paid to Bo Long on the pretext of investing in various projects in mainland China, however the funds were never invested in such projects.
Ho pleaded guilty to nine charges relating to the dishonest use of over $1.5 million of investor assets between August 1997 and April 1999 and was sentenced to nine years jail, with a non-parole period of three years.
Meanwhile Sweeney was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years’ jail with no recommendation for parole after being found guilty on 10 charges of dishonestly obtaining over $ 2.5 million from investors between July 1997 and March 1999.
The investors, many of whom were from the Tweed Rivers area in Queensland, were advised the money would be used to assist with various infrastructure projects in China, such as the supply of gas metres and electronic police monitoring devices.
However none of the funds were used for these purposes and $1.5 million of these funds were used by Ho and her family for personal expenses and to purchase real estate and prestige motor vehicles.
“Any investor seeking to invest in this type of scheme should always check that the scheme has been registered, that it is being offered by persons who are licensed to offer such investments or that there is a prospectus which has been lodged with ASIC,” Cooper said.
