Former “most wanted man” Anthony Tan loses court appeal over $10m Covid glove scam
A Sydney businessman, once considered NSW’s “most wanted” after fleeing overseas with a bullet in his shoulder, is at the centre of a rollercoaster court action featuring an alleged kidnapping and a $10m Covid supply fraud.
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A Sydney businessman, once considered NSW’s “most wanted man” after fleeing overseas with a bullet lodged in his shoulder, is at the centre of a rollercoaster court action featuring an alleged kidnapping and a $10m Covid supply fraud.
Anthony Tan – once accused, and then acquitted, of killing a Rebels bikie in a Reservoir Dogs-style shootout – and his company were ordered to pay more than $7m to a company named Blue Mirror, which claimed it was ripped off in a deal to buy 100 million surgical gloves at the height of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, Blue Mirror’s former director – a high-flying Sydney investment manager – is himself serving a three-year sentence in the community for forging documents used to spruik dodgy investments.
According to the documents lodged in the NSW Supreme Court, Mr Tan’s brother – convicted-murderer Ken Tan – withdrew more than $9.5m that was being held in trust for Blue Mirror as it waited in vain for delivery of the gloves, which never arrived.
Court files have lifted the lid on the case, during which sensational claims of a carjacking and missing documents were aired.
Most wanted Tan
Anthony Tan made headlines more than a decade ago as NSW’s “most wanted man” as police sought him out as part of their investigation into a dramatic murder.
He was ultimately acquitted amid revelations police had hidden crucial evidence.
The two-year manhunt was sparked by the 2009 shooting of 23-year-old Rebels bikie Edin “Boz” Smajovic in a scene detectives described at the time as reminiscent of the film “Reservoir Dogs”.
According to the Coroner’s report, Tan, his business partner Nathan Reddy, Smajovic and another Rebels bikie had met at Tan’s car dealership, where at least two guns were drawn.
Those involved were said at the time to both be screaming at the other to drop their weapons.
The encounter left Tan with a wound to his neck and a bullet lodged in his shoulder blade, with Smajovic dying on the ground from a fatal shot to his heart.
Tan signed himself out of Liverpool Hospital against medical advice – still with a bullet lodged in his shoulder – and left for Vietnam six days later.
In 2011, he handed himself in to police at Sydney Airport after reading about himself in the Sunday Telegraph.
In 2012 he was charged with murder and Mr Reddy was charged with being an accessory after the fact.
But in 2013, charges against both men were sensationally withdrawn by the NSW DPP after a police officer was found to have withheld vital evidence.
The evidence, which reportedly included a confession to the murder by another man, did not come to light until it was stolen from an unmarked police car and leaked to defence lawyers.
In further embarrassment for police, Mr Tan and Mr Reddy were later awarded legal costs.
While this was happening, older brother Ken Tan – once described by police as a “one-man crime wave” – was serving an eight-year sentence for a botched drive-by shooting which saw an innocent man killed.
‘Can’t take my eyes off you’
The wedding of Anthony Tan and lawyer Lucy Nguyen – at Sydney’s Park Hyatt – was a dreamy interlude between the violence at the caryard and the Blue Mirror mire that was to come.
It turns out the car business wasn’t just the genesis of Tan’s stint as “most wanted” by NSW police – but also where he met his future wife, whose parents had sent her to inspect a car for her younger brother.
According to notes on a wedding photo submitted to the Sunday Telegraph in 2017, they “bonded over a love for travelling, food and champagne and always find the funny side to things in life.”
Tan proposed under the sails of the Opera House “on a freezing winter morning”.
In the photo, a sharply-dressed Tan – a single white rose in his lapel – beams at his new bride, resplendent in a Vera Wang lace mermaid dress.
A guest list of 42 friends and family watched the newlyweds waltz to Franki Valli’s ‘Can’t take my eyes off you’.
A sanitiser sting and surgical glove slap
With the high-profile murder cases in the rear-view, and the Covid-19 pandemic fuelling unprecedented demand for hygiene products, the Tan brothers saw lucrative new opportunities.
Around March 2020, Anthony’s company Tan & Tan Australia struck a deal to supply 100 million surgical gloves to Blue Mirror, taking payment of $10m, which was held in trust via another company, Pegasus Australia Developments.
The funds were supposed to be released once Blue Mirror took delivery of the coveted stockpile of gloves – but not a single glove materialised.
According to the court documents, Ken Tan, then CEO of Pegasus, withdrew $9.5m of the money, with $1m of it eventually making its way into Anthony’s personal bank account and another $6.147m going to an account held by Australian Construction Company, of which he was sole director.
In his defence, Anthony Tan’s team argued he and his company were owed $8.5m by Pegasus as part payment of a $10m deal to supply it with 200,000 litres of hand sanitiser.
Ultimately, that defence didn’t wash.
Blue Mirror win for convicted forger
At the time Blue Mirror was chasing Tan through court, it was directed by former high-flying Sydney investment manager Brett Trevillian – whose hands were also less than clean when it came to the law.
In December last year he was sentenced to three year’s imprisonment for forging reports about a trading strategy he spruiked to investors.
He attracted more than $14m from “sophisticated, high net worth clients” – based on a series of completely fictional trades.
An investigation by corporate regulator ASIC found Mr Trevillian forged performance reports from celebrity wealth management firm Bell Partners, which purportedly demonstrated his capacity to deliver extraordinary 30 per cent returns.
Bell Partners had no knowledge of the falsified documents until an investor tipped them off and they reported it to ASIC.
The investor funds were ultimately returned in full, with interest.
Mr Trevillian, 51, has been allowed to serve his prison term as an intensive corrections order which includes 18 months of home detention, due to end on June 19, 2026, and 300 hours of community service work
Mr Trevillian’s father, retired Newcastle kidney doctor Paul, has been registered as the sole director of Blue Mirror since January this year. He’s not accused of any wrongdoing.
Via its lawyers, the company declined to comment on the case.
Evidence caught up in carjacking
Probed in court about the absence of documents which would normally be expected for a $10m deal, Anthony Tan, 41, testified that some had been stored on a laptop and phone which had been lost in an action-packed kidnapping and carjacking incident.
According to the court documents, Tan said his cousin had been kidnapped and he was driving a van behind the car being driven by the kidnappers.
Tan told the court he planned to give his cousin money to pay the kidnappers, but instead his van and the car collided, allowing the cousin to escape and join Tan in the van.
Then there was a second collision, and “Tan and the cousin ran from the van, which was driven off by a man,” according to an excerpt from court.
Tan said he spent most of that day, November 7, 2020 – after court proceedings commenced – being interviewed by the police.
In February 2024, the court ruled in favour of Tan and his company, dismissing the claim by Blue Mirror.
But in October that year the Court of Appeal overturned the decision, ordering Tan to pay Blue Mirror $1m and his Australian Construction Company to pay $6.147m.
That $6.147m is what ultimately saw ACC slide into liquidation last week.
The appeal judge questioned the lack of documents for the supposed sanitiser deal, saying “there would have been delivery dockets, emails concerning deliveries and receipts.
“There would have been financial records stating the revenue derived, the costs of production, including the costs of individual containers and labelling. There would have been taxation records.”
A subsequent High Court appeal by Tan and his company against that appeal was refused with costs, in a decision published in April.
“You’re chasing a ghost, dude”
Judges in the Blue Mirror case criticised Anthony Tan as “unsatisfactory” and “not credible” witness, whose evidence had “odd aspects”.
One said he “frequently responded to questions in an evasive or begrudging way” and that for much of the case, Tan’s “obstructiveness was such as to make effective cross-examination practically impossible”.
For example, during cross examination where the money transfers were being discussed by the prosecutor and judge, he said “you’re chasing a ghost, dude”.
The judge could not be sure who he was addressing as “dude”, but said it “demonstrated an entirely inappropriate understanding of Anthony Tan’s obligations as a witness under cross-examination”.
The construction company liquidation and another $7.7m lost
Australian Construction Company, which was solely directed by Tan until June 11 this year, was wound up in the NSW Supreme Court on July 9 after it failed to pay the $6.147m it owed to Blue Mirror.
Its current director, according to ASIC records, is 23-year-old Newcastle man Yunqi Zhang.
Liquidator Anthony Elkerton of DW Advisory said the full scale of money owed to all creditors was yet to be determined and his investigations were ongoing.
“Neither replacement or current director have responded to correspondence,” he said.
Mr Tan’s legal firm for the case declined to comment and Mr Tan himself could not be contacted.
Australian Construction Company has held a NSW contractor licence since June 2018.
Meanwhile, Tan & Tan Australia, directed by Anthony Tan until November 2020, had its assets frozen during the Blue Mirror case, and was placed into liquidation in November 2023.
A report from the liquidator, lodged with ASIC in April last year, said it owed up to $7.7m to 12 creditors, including staff. Most are unlikely to see any of their money returned.
What’s next for Anthony Tan?
More than 15 years after the shooting in his Sydney caryard, Tan is still in the auto business, as director of companies named Auto Group and Finance Australia.
The companies have registered multiple websites for a business named Tan Motors, which advertises itself as a distributor for Chinese automaker BAW International.
It is understood the $1m owed to Trevillian’s Blue Mirror is still outstanding.
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