Press Release
Victims of Financial Fraud (VOFF Inc)
September 17th 2017
Money Laundering.
VOFF’s Press Release dated May 21 2017 highlights the “double standards” in the way a financial
fraud is investigated depending on whether the fraud is against ordinary citizens or the fraud
against the Commonwealth.1 Similar discrepancies can be seen in the way the Anti-Money
Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) Act is administered. VOFF fear another
“double standard” exists, exposing about 15 million superannuation account holders in Australia
because weaknesses in the Australian financial system are not disclosed.
According to a former AUSTRAC senior advisor, ‘the failure of major banks and other financial
institutions to carry out basic due diligence likely placed them in breach of “know your customer’
requirements.’ Furthermore ‘any criminal can get a company created today and bounce all the
money into one account and then send it offshore and walk away from the company. No one will ask
questions of the company for months.’2
If authorities have known about, ‘weak laws and questionable banking practices have enabled
crime figures to open individual or company accounts or deposit funds with minimal or false
identification, and quietly move millions of dollars through Australian banks’, where are the
warnings informing investors or superannuation account holders about these very weaknesses?
The allegations about the CBA’s ATM money transactions is a reminder of the Trio Capital
Limited scheme where a criminal gang took over a reputable funds management business and
transferred investor’s money to destinations only known to the criminals.
1 http://www.mysuperrights.info/media-release-p3.php
2 Nick McKenzie, Richard Baker and Georgina Mitchell ‘Money laundered through all big banks: police’, The Australian
Financial Review 15 September 2017 Page 12.
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services Inquiry into the
collapse of Trio Capital, noted in their May 2012 Report,
The custodian (in Trio's case, the National Australia Bank) does very little to protect the
funds of investors. It makes no independent checks before transferring money offshore.
Instead, the custodian simply acts on the instructions of the responsible entity. 3
Trio’s responsible entity turned out to be a predatory fraudster who preyed upon elderly
citizen’s retirement savings, knowing people trusted their savings in a fund that was approved,
registered, licenced and governed by the Australian Securities and Investments Committee
(ASIC) and the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA). The fraudsters made money
disappear by exploiting the weaknesses in the Australian financial system.
The PJC also noted,
“ASIC in its submission drew attention to its current review of custodians and flagged that
one aspect of the review will be to consider whether custodians should be more proactive in
identifying and reporting suspicious matters involving their clients.” 4 & Ref.
The Trio fraud illustrates a systemic failure of the Australian financial system - there were no
safeguards whatsoever and consequently honest people lost their savings. The scapegoating and
victimization used against Trio cannot be employed in the current money laundering
investigations. Seemingly the discrepancies in applying the AML/CTF Act and the admission
about the weaknesses in the financial system would suggest it’s time the Trio victims receive an
apology, compensation and be vindicated for the crime that financial regulatory agencies should
have expected.
John Telford
Secretary VOFF
Email: johnt@1earth.net