He’s been holed up in Tasmania, but this alleged Gold Coast fraudster’s luck has finally run out

A FORMER Gold Coast developer at the centre of an alleged ponzi scam has been nabbed at Brisbane airport and charged with multiple fraud and dishonesty offences worth millions of dollars.

Australian Federal Police nabbed Brad Silver at Brisbane Airport yesterday.

A FORMER Gold Coast developer at the centre of an alleged ponzi scam has been nabbed at Brisbane airport and charged with multiple fraud and dishonesty offences worth millions of dollars.

Bradley Keith Silver, of Tasmania, was arrested by Australian Federal Police officers yesterday, and fronted Brisbane Magistrates Court later the same day.

Following an ASIC investigation, Mr Silver was charged with seven counts of fraud to the value of $2.32 million, each carrying a maximum sentence of 12 years and six counts of dishonest use of his position as a director, which carry a maximum sentence of imprisonment of five years.

Mr Silver was released on conditional bail, ordered to surrender his passport and to appear in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on August 25.

Mr Silver was the director Capital Growth International Club associated with a company known as All About Property Developments between 2008 and 2010.

In February 2011, the companies were placed into liquidation owing investors — many of them elderly — about $9 million.

The case, where unconventional “low-doc” loans were offered to clients as old as 98, was the subject of a Senate economics committee’s inquiry into bank practices in 2012.

David St Pierre leaves the Southport Magistrates Court. Picture: Meagan Weymes.

Westpac’s former Pacific Fair home lending manager David St Pierre was sentenced to three years’ jail earlier this year after pleading guilty to the ‘calculated’ dishonesty when he arranged about $4 million in loans to mainly elderly customers to invest in Capital Growth International Club.

The court heard customers were promised returns of up to 20 per cent a year to invest in CGIC and were told by St Pierre their money was ‘safe’.

But they lost between $78,000 and $540,000 each after CGIC went into liquidation in 2011.

The 98-year-old lost $440,000 while a 74-year-old male pensioner lost $448,000.

Mr St Pierre was due to be released on a good behaviour bond next month.