Ex-bikie, businessman jailed for $1.4m boiler room scam

Two men including a former Finks bikie have been jailed for defrauding 28 people of $1.4 million in a Gold Coast “boiler room” fake investment scheme.

A social media image of Jacob Stanes

A former Finks bikie and a software businessman have been jailed for defrauding 28 people of $1.4 million in a Gold Coast “boiler room” fake investment scheme.

Jacob Graham Stanes, 28, a former Finks bikie club treasurer and salesman, and Garreth Charl Cain, 42, each pleaded guilty to fraud of over $30,000.

Stanes, who was involved in sales, reaped $594,605 from the fraud and Cain, who was involved in providing software, obtained $478,335, Brisbane District Court heard.

Crown prosecutor Greg Cummings said of the $1.4 million paid by people who thought they were buying into an investment service, $1,009,793 was never recovered.

Stanes and Cain were sentenced on the basis that they did not start the shonky “cold call” investment business, but after they realised the scheme was false they continued with it for eight months.

Mr Cummings said legitimate touting was pushed to the absolute limit and investors were falsely led to believe they were dealing with an established company with a trusted record.

But he said no investment service was being offered and no funds were ever invested during the sophisticated fraud in 2015.

Mr Cummings said the Gold Coast seemed to be an epicentre for this type of investment fraud.

The victims, who has suffered substantial financial losses, had to wait seven years for that chapter of their lives to conclude.

A social media image of Jacob Stanes

Judge Katherine McGinness said hard working members of the community thought they were investing in a legitimate scheme.

She said representations made to them were designed to induce them to part with money and the funds received from individuals ranged from $7500 to $200,000.

Only $339,453 was recovered, the court heard.

Since being charged Stanes, who previously had a drug addiction, had been jailed for two years for an associated fraud and other jail terms or other offences.

Cain, a married father-of-three who had since established a successful software company, had no criminal history.

The court heard he had bipolar disorder and had stopped taking medication at the time of the fraud.

More than $200,000 in funds obtained through the fraud was still in Cain’s bank account when he was arrested.

In 2020, another man involved in the bogus investment scheme was sentenced to five years’ jail, suspended after 20 months, for receiving $832,850, which he used to buy a boat.

Judge McGinness sentenced Stanes to three years’ jail, cumulative on his previous two-year fraud sentence and ordered he be eligible for parole in June.

Cain was sentenced to five years’ jail, suspended after 12 months, operational for five years.

Judge McGinness ordered that he pay the $200,000 he had offered to pay in compensation for victims.