The life and crimes of Peter Foster

HE had his first brush with the law at the age of 20 and while he might portray himself as a likable rogue, his rip-off schemes have made him Queensland’s most notorious con man.

Peter Foster on the run supposedly in Fiji 2013.

IT was 2003 and Peter Foster had just flown back into Australia from Ireland on a flight dubbed ‘Con Air’ by one British tabloid. I was among a press pack there to greet him at Sydney Airport.

Foster had been booted out of Ireland, where he had fled under threat of deportation from England, after plunging Downing St into the ‘Cheriegate’ scandal with revelations he had helped then-British PM Tony Blair’s wife Cherie negotiate a London property deal.

The notorious Gold Coast conman was dating Mrs Blair’s friend and ‘lifestyle guru’, Carole Caplin, at the and his connection to the Blairs had Fleet Street in a frenzy.

After landing in Sydney, Foster was served with a thick wad of papers by two officials from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission over his latest slimming scam.

On the connecting flight back to the Gold Coast, I did a bit of conning myself — persuading a fellow passenger to move seats so I could sit next to Foster, who found himself wedged between me and a reporter from Britain’s Daily Mail.

Ever-charming (unless you happen to cross him), Foster chatted freely during the 57-minute flight to Coolangatta on everything from his romance with Caplin, the Blairs and his plans to walk the streets of Surfers Paradise again for the first time in five years.

“The plane touched down in Coolangatta, Foster not having tried to sell me a single ‘miracle’ slimming pill, slimming cream or slimming tea. I still had my wallet too,’’ my story in The Courier-Mail concluded.

Reporting on the life and crimes of Foster over the years, I’ve staked him out at ritzy Gold Coast restaurants, hinterland hideaways and once even from aboard a water taxi on a canal on the Isle of Capri where he was living with his mum Louise (reputedly the Glitter Strip’s first female real estate agent), trying to dodge the media.

It was a media tip-off this week that led police to Foster’s latest arrest at his latest fugitive bolt-hole.

The self-proclaimed ‘international man of mischief’ was dramatically nabbed outside Byron Bay where he and an associate had been living in a $1.3 million, five-bedroom mansion rented for $1400 a week, allegedly running a multimillion dollar sports betting scheme.

Foster had been on the run for more than 12 months after being found guilty of contempt for defying Federal Court orders to stay away from weight loss schemes. After going into hiding last October, he was sentenced to three years’ jail for his involvement in a $6 million slimming spray scam.

“The judge can stick it up his jacksie,’’ Foster told The Sunday-Mail from, he claimed, Fiji.

Foster had sent media outlets copies of him against a tropical backdrop, holding copies of the Fiji Times newspaper. Other reports had him plotting to flee to the Cook Islands in a luxury motor yacht called The Next Adventure.

An Interpol alert was issued but Foster is believed to have been hiding out in Byron Bay all the time.

He was tracked down by A Current Affair, with the help of a private investigator, who had been on Foster’s tail for months.

Looking every bit the ageing Byron feral, a straggly-haired, grey-bearded and bloated Foster was crash-tackled and dragged out of bushes by police in the backyard next to his rented Ewingsdale pad. Upon being arrested, he immediately claimed to be suffering chest pains and was taken to hospital.

“He looks like so many of the old guys that come out of the hills around Byron so he probably blended right in,’’ neighbour Sam Buckle said of Foster’s ability to remain undiscovered for so long in the popular resort town.

It was almost a re-run of Foster’s arrest in Fiji in 2006, when he was hospitalised after what he claimed was brutal treatment at the hands of police. He had stripped down to his underpants and jumped into a river in a bid to avoid capture.

Fijian police wanted to question him over matters including a dodgy loan from the Bank of Micronesia for a bogus property development near Suva.

He was later jailed over that fraud — one of many which has seen him serve time in the UK, USA, Australia, Fiji and Vanuatu.

Foster, who pleaded guilty to assaulting police and resisting arrest over his Byron Bay capture, is now back behind bars after being ordered to serve at least 18 months of his three-year sentence on the slimming scheme contempt charge.

Even in court, Foster appeared to be flexible with the truth.

His lawyer claimed Foster had been living a ‘monk-like’ existence in Byron Bay while caring for his sick, elderly mother.

But The Courier-Mail found 83-year-old Louise Foster-Poletti smoking cigarettes at a waterfront mansion on the Sovereign Islands, one of the Gold Coast’s most exclusive suburbs. NSW police said there was no evidence she had ever lived at the Ewingsdale property.

Since his first brush with the law at the age of 20 over a fight fix on the Gold Coast, Foster has sought to portray himself as some kind of likable rogue.

“He’s been painted as a naughty boy as if he was a Ned Kelly-type character,’’ a veteran Gold Coast legal figure told The Courier-Mail this week.

“(But) he is a grub who has consistently ripped off people, including friends.’’

Foster’s victims include his one-time close friend and lawyer Sean Cousins, who was disbarred in 2007 over his involvement with the conman.

After his 2006 arrest in Fiji, Foster told The Courier-Mail: “I’m getting too old for this.’’

At 52, he is still up to his old tricks.