Ex-cop Mick Featherstone pulled puppet directors’ strings in boiler-room scam, say police

A FORMER high-ranking Gold Coast detective allegedly masterminded a boiler-room scam, duping hundreds of people of between $15 million and $20 million.

FRAUD Job - Mick Featherstone leaves the watch house in Brisbane.

A FORMER high-ranking Gold Coast detective allegedly masterminded a multi-million-dollar boiler-room scam, duping hundreds of people with the help of his wife and son.

Police allege Mick Featherstone and his wife, Zoei Keong, were key players in the scheme which involved manipulating vulnerable people – including a man with a brain injury – to become “puppet directors” of 12 scam companies.

Investors were cold-called and asked to pay between $500 and $1000 for a four-day trial of betting and investment software. After seeing fake profits, they then signed 12-month contracts, police allege.

CHARGES: Ex-detective, wife, son bailed

But the companies linked to the investments would disappear before the year was up, it is alleged, and about 600 people lost a total of between $15 million and $20 million.

Featherstone is a former Surfers Paradise criminal investigation branch boss and fraud squad member who is said to have built connections at the highest levels of the Queensland Police Service.

After a Crime and Cor­ruption Commission and Queensland Police investigation, Featherstone, 52, Keong, 32, and his son Zach, 21, were charged with aggravated fraud and money laundering.

Alleged associates Travis Burch, 36, and Robert Doueihi, 34, were also charged with both offences, while Kirsty Lester, 39, and Daniel Webb, 32, faced one charge each of aggravated fraud.

All seven were granted bail after police decided not to oppose their applications in the Brisbane Magistrates Court.

Police prosecutor Senior Sergeant Mark Gorton told the court the scam “generally related to people being conned into buying betting schemes or investment software schemes that promised high returns and the companies would then ultimately just disappear”.

Zoei Keong.

Zach Featherstone.

“It would appear on the face of it that about 12 companies were involved,” he said.

Police will allege Zach Featherstone was in charge of managing “puppet directors” put in place at those companies.

One of the alleged “directors” was a bottle shop employee with a brain injury from a road accident. Another was told to sign 100 blank cheques in advance, police will allege.

When companies were shut down, new companies with different directors would allegedly already be set up so the scam could operate continuously.

Anti-bikies squad Taskforce Maxima played a key role in the investigation, with police examining alleged links between the boiler rooms and ­alleged Mongols enforcer Nick “The Knife” Forbes and Mongols associate Jason Trouchet.

Detectives allege Featherstone provided key elements required to facilitate the fraud, ran interference when people complained, and took a percentage of the profits, suspected to be as high as 10 per cent.

An alleged victim of the Pegasus scam told The Courier-Mail he lost about $1500.

He said he invested money into an account and was told the online site would place bets on US sporting events. The alleged victim said he paid $3300 to buy a “licence” and then invested a further $1000.

“They never lost a bet,” he said. “They’d bet 5 per cent of your balance each time, pretty much every day.

“You’d just see the results but you wouldn’t know the bet before the game was played. Exactly 12 months later, they were gone.”

The cases of all seven defendants will return to court next month.

— with David Murray