Bikini mogul Erin Deering says ‘any suggestion I’ve breached tax laws is wrong’

A multi-millionaire in the running to be Melbourne deputy lord mayor has defended living in well-known tax ­havens and “illegally” smuggling bikinis across the Chinese border.

Erin Deering is running on a ticket with Arron Wood. Picture: Mark Stewart

A fashion mogul running for deputy lord mayor of Melbourne has defended “illegally” smuggling bikinis across the Chinese border to avoid paying tax.

Erin Deering – who became a multi-millionaire after setting up bikini company Triangl with former Western Bulldogs star Craig Ellis – has twice ­detailed how she was busted over the attempted tax dodge.

Ms Deering, running for election on lord mayoral candidate Arron Wood’s ticket, states in her 2023 memoir: “We decided to illegally drive the stock across the border. A huge risk, but one we took so we could save a fair amount of money ... Doing it ourselves meant avoiding the inevitable taxes applied by China for all goods entering the country.

Erin Deering and Craig Ellis set up bikini company Triangl.

“We purchased some very cheap suitcases to house the ­bikinis in. Keeping the bikinis in the cardboard boxes would have raised the alarm for the border authorities, for sure, whereas we thought suitcases looked like we were going into China for a holiday. In hindsight, it was a stupid idea.

“I didn’t even know what kind of implications were in place for breaking China’s customs laws. In Australia, it was a fine and nothing more, and in Hong Kong I imagined a similar scenario.

“But we weren’t in either place. We were in China.”

In the book, called Hanging by a Thread, Ms Deering says she and then-husband and co-founder Ellis tried to drive two vans with the goods through customs checkpoints into Shenzhen, China, where their new factory was located.

Erin Deering and her then-husband Craig Ellis.

But the stash was discovered and confiscated. Ms Deering said the pair were let go without a fine or jail time.

On a podcast for the Female Startup Club, Ms Deering again detailed the episode, saying: “We decided that we would carry it over the Chinese border without doing it properly, because we didn’t want to pay tax … so we put it in suitcases and tried to illegally drive it over the border, and got caught.”

The rort could have “killed” her business, she admitted, ­because so much stock was confiscated.

Asked by the Herald Sun about her attitudes towards tax in the book, Ms Deering said on the weekend: “Any suggestion I’ve breached tax laws is wrong.”

When her own confessions to “illegally” avoiding tax were raised, Ms Deering still refused to acknowledge wrongdoing.

“If anyone has done business in China they know it can be complicated and difficult at times,” she said.

Ms Deeming says any suggestion she breached tax laws is wrong. Picture: Instagram

“All of our bikinis were made in China but had been sent to Triangl in Hong Kong, where there are no import duties.

“We tried to get the stock back into China quickly because we had engaged a logistics company for the first time, which was based in China, and were going to send stock ­directly from China to customers from then on. We got stopped at the border and the stock was confiscated.”

Throughout the book, Ms Deering also boasts about minimising her income tax by living in well-known tax ­havens.

“The appeal of Monaco for us, aside from it being a beautiful town on the French Riviera, was the favourable and well-known tax perk of zero per cent personal tax,” she said.

“I won’t dance around the fact that the tax scenario was appealing, and absolutely this played into our decision to live there.”

In 2015, when considering moving to New York while trying to sell the business, which at its peak Ms Deering claims was worth up to $200m, she said the move would have cost her dearly because she’d have to pay tax if she stayed in the country for more than 120 days.

“We fought so hard to set up Triangl in tax-positive jurisdictions, it felt irresponsible to then blow that all on living in a city purely because I wanted to,” she says.

“It was more of a ‘why not’ scenario with Monaco. Why not pay no tax?”

At the height of Triangl’s success, Ms Deering boasts in her book of living on a super yacht and using private jets.

In 2016, as her relationship with Ellis ended, Ms Deering left Triangl in 2016 and ­returned to Melbourne.

She has since set up a new fashion business, and this year announced her candidacy for the Melbourne election.

Ms Deering told the Herald Sun she believed she was the right candidate for deputy lord mayor, saying she had the expertise to bring Melbourne’s budget “back under control” and “attract international investment back into our great city”.

“I’ve always been upfront and honest about my successes and my struggles, and everything is in my memoir for everyone to read,” she said.

“I’m proud of having grown up in a middle-class family here in Melbourne and building my business from a tiny apartment in Hong Kong packing boxes into a global success story.”

Originally published as Bikini mogul Erin Deering says ‘any suggestion I’ve breached tax laws is wrong’