It was a swindle of global proportions. The alleged perpetrator is a fraudster dubbed the Bernie Madoff of India. From his swish offices in Bahrain and Switzerland, Ahsan Ali Syed has orchestrated a multi-million-dollar scam where upfront fees were paid for loans that never eventuated.
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The victims are well-heeled business people from Australia, including a former state treasurer, as well as from New Zealand, Malaysia, Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands.
This week Keith Johnson, one of NSW's largest property developers, who was fleeced $US3,627,000, is meeting Bahraini criminal prosecutors to provide documentary evidence that Mr Ali, 40, is at the centre of a vast transnational fraud.
''Hopefully, criminal proceedings will bring this to an end,'' Mr Johnson, whose own property development empire is in the hands of an administrator, said.
Mr Ali's company Western Gulf Advisory claimed it had $US8 billion in its Swiss coffers with up to $US1.1 billion earmarked for investment in Australian projects.
Over the past few years, dozens of Australian businessmen, thwarted in their attempts to refinance loans locally, made the pilgrimage to Mr Ali's office in Bahrain, buoyed by the promise of a financial lifeline. But it was all an illusion, a sophisticated scam whereby Mr Ali pocketed each borrower's 1.6 per cent establishment fee. With promised loans of up to $US200 million, the upfront fees had to be paid to secure the loans. Most investors lost several million dollars each.
At the end of last year a Bahrani court ordered Mr Ali to repay Mr Johnson's fees plus interest but today WGA will be back in court, appealing the decision.
The Melbourne lawyer Andy Bryce, who represents 15 other Australian clients who between them have lost more than $30 million, will accompany Mr Johnson to Bahrain.
Mr Bryce said that as a result of WGA's fraudulent activities his clients had suffered further losses of about $100 million, with three companies having gone into liquidation. ''It's an international fraud,'' said Mr Bryce. ''There are inquiries under way with Interpol and the NZ Serious Fraud Office,'' as well by Swiss authorities, he said.
Most clients invested after reading articles in the Australian press quoting people claiming to have received loans from WGA. These claims were untrue, Mr Bryce said.
A former Queensland treasurer, Keith De Lacy, the chairman of the failed Cubbie Group, was promoted by WGA as having received funding. But no loan materialised and the Cubbie consortium is still out of pocket to the tune of $1.5 million.
Australians are not the only ones to have been fleeced by WGA. Terry Serepisos , a prominent New Zealand entrepreneur, spent most of last year attempting to stave off bankruptcy, repeatedly claiming he was about to be rescued by a $100 million loan from WGA. which was to become a half owner of Mr Serepisos's A-League football team, Wellington Phoenix. Deadlines for WGA's promised loan came and went until finally Mr Serepisos, who had relished starring in the Donald Trump role in the New Zealand TV version of The Apprentice, was finally bankrupted last September.
The Phoenix wasn't the only football team affected by the WGA scam. Across the world, Ali has wreaked havoc on the Spanish premier division side Racing Santander.
Having failed in his attempt to buy the English Premier League team Blackburn Rovers in 2010, early last year Ali acquired Racing Santander.
This is all the more extraordinary considering that only six years earlier Ali, then living in London, fled the country leaving behind an unkempt flat, £7800 owing on the rent and bailiffs on his tail over unpaid council taxes.
This time last year, Mr Ali swept into Spain on his private jet with his fawning retinue in tow and the promise of a bucketload of money to take the struggling side to the top of the league.
A year later, Mr Ali's promised millions have failed to materialise and Racing Santander is in tatters. The coach has quit, the president has departed, the board resigned en masse and most of the players walked out having not been paid. As The Guardian reported last month, ''Everyone walked except their owner[Ali], who ran.'' The paper reported that Ali was wanted by Interpol and has disappeared.
But Ali recently appeared on Bahraini television when WGA was announced as the new sponsor of the Bahraini Supercar series. For Mr Johnson, the sighting of Mr Ali has given him hope. ''He's still operating, so there's still money which we may be able to recover,'' he said.
