Crinitis’ threatened to sack staff who banked cash: liquidators
Head office at the once-flashy Crinitis pizza empire allegedly threatened the managers of its restaurants with the sack if they didn’t stop banking cash months before they went bust, liquidators claim.
NSW
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Head office at the once-flashy Crinitis pizza empire allegedly threatened the managers of its restaurants with the sack if they didn’t stop banking cash months before they went bust, liquidators claim.
The alleged actions effectively hid money from creditors who were owed a massive $53,314,631.
Liquidators are also hunting down a fleet of cars which have disappeared into thin air.
While the Crinitis companies were well known for displaying classic cars and motorbikes in their restaurants — including Ducatis and Harley-Davidsons — and using a Rolls Royce to drive around VIPs, liquidators Worrells have not been able to track them down.
A fleet of everyday cars have also disappeared, according to the latest liquidator’s report filed with the corporate watchdog ASIC.
NSW Roads and Maritime Services list them as having been owned by the Crinitis companies but records show they have not been sold or disposed of and some have not been registered for years.
Worrells have claimed they had uncovered a “head office missive” from January 2019 directing each of the 13 restaurants to stop banking cash receipts, leading to a $2.4 million shortfall across the group between cash sales and the money banked.
A cash shortfall of $2,403,823 has been identified between January 2019 and when the group went into liquidation in November.
Liquidators claim it had been trading while insolvent since December 2018.
Creditors of the 38 companies in the Crinitis group last week voted to allow Worrells to pool the assets of the related companies in a move which might return them as much as 24c in the dollar.
Worrells partner and Criniti’s liquidator Graeme Beattie said pooling the assets would make it easier to potentially pursue directors for insolvent trading and “voidable transactions” which include loans to members of the Criniti family, including $5,612,750 to Frank Criniti.
No charges have been laid against any individual in relation to the liquidators claims.
Frank Criniti, 40, was married to Rima Criniti, 40, and together they founded the first Crinitis restaurant in Parramatta in 2003.
The family chain grew to include glamour sites such as Wolloomooloo Wharf, popular with celebrities.
The couple is now divorced and Frank Criniti has been declared bankrupt.
Patriarch Cosimo Criniti also borrowed $138,715 from the companies and his wife Rosa $4,250.
Liquidators are also searching through a maze of 336 inter-company loans totalling more than $50 million, which should cancel each other out as assets and liabilities, but instead there is $675,601 missing.
In each of the 38 companies, liquidators discovered “extensive record-keeping errors, irreconcilable accounts and numerous instances of director intransigence”.
The six remaining stores, in Parramatta, Castle Hill, Darling Harbour and Kotara in NSW and Carlton and Southbank in Victoria, were recently sold by the liquidators for a bargain $1 million to South Australian restaurant group Brunelli, owned by businessman Raj Patel.
No-one from the Criniti family could be contacted for comment.
Originally published as Crinitis’ threatened to sack staff who banked cash: liquidators