James Charisiou was no novice at corporate finance. At KPMG, the Melburnian advised banks on big deals. On Friday, he was sentenced to 12 years in jail for the deal of his life – securing $395 million from South Korean investors to build specialist accommodation for use in the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

If only any of it was real. The elaborate fraud rocked Australia’s property industry. Charisiou even used the names of some of the sector’s most prominent executives – from David Crawford and Kylie Rampa, both then at Lendlease, to Cbus Property chief Adrian Pozzo – to lure his unsuspecting victims.