Scott Capelin’s how-to guide on making money using fake invoices
The boss of an up-market fitness studio at the centre of a police fraud investigation sent a potential investor a guide to “finding money” by creating fake invoices, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.
EXCLUSIVE: The boss of an upmarket fitness studio at the centre of a police fraud investigation sent a potential investor a guide to “finding money” by creating fake invoices.
Scott Capelin, 42, has outraged members of the Embody fitness and wellness studio in Neutral Bay by telling them another company is reopening in the same premises and with the same name just three weeks after it closed, leaving investors hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
Investor Tim Cox, who has lost $500,000 he put into the business, said “alarm bells started to ring” when he saw the email Capelin had written in March last year.
In the email Capelin told the potential investor “fortune favours the brave”.
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He explained how he secured a $50,000 loan for computers based on an invoice given him by a friend who runs an IT company.
“My IT friend transferred the money to me. There never were any computers,” he wrote. “And then I claimed depreciation on them! I’ve done that a few times.
“I’ve done the same with my brother-in-law who is an electrician and supplied audiovisual hardware (sound system and televisions).
“He actually wrote an invoice for $215,000, which was hugely inflated.”
Capelin said he passed that money on to fit out another gym.
“I am not encouraging you to do anything illegal, I am just being open about my experiences,” he wrote.
“The issues are always time, money and resources. They can all be overcome.”
Mr Cox said that he found a bill in the company accounts from an electrician for more than $200,000.
“We were in the studio every day and never saw an electrician,” he said. “That’s enough money to wire a tower block.”
NSW Police have confirmed detectives are investigating allegations of fraud in the businesses behind the luxury studio.
Liquidator Guy Baxendale said he will refer the business to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s new phoenixing department to investigate.
Meanwhile members have posted complaints on the Embody — Replenish Your Life web page. One wrote she had sent five emails after the unauthorised withdrawal of $612 from her bank account.
The members have formed a protest group called Dis-Embody and vowed to picket the front of the studio when it reopens at 6.30am on Monday.
“I was a member there from day one,” Mr Cox’s partner Louise Bourke said. “I will be standing out the front handing out copies of The Daily Telegraph story to anyone thinking of going inside.”
Founding member Elizabeth Adams said: “I could never set foot inside there again after what has happened. It is most devastating for the young trainers who invested in the business and have now lost their money and their jobs.”
Trainer Tim Heasman told The Daily Telegraph he had invested the $150,000 inheritance he received from his father’s death into the business. He was sacked by Mr Capelin, along with all the other trainers, three weeks ago.
Mr Capelin did not respond to requests for comment.
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