Inquiries about entrepreneur are off the scale

On top of the AFP probe into David Collard’s tax affairs, a private eye has been snooping around his offices with queries for staff.

David Collard in the One World Trade Center office. Pic: Abby Holden

A private investigator hired by an Asian multinational corporation has been looking into the affairs of embattled Geelong entrepreneur David Collard.

The swooping investigation into the ongoing saga at Collard’s Scale Facilitation is crossing multinational jurisdictions including the US, Australia, China and tax haven the Cayman Islands.

The cash strapped entrepreneur has been hitting the headlines daily since Page 13 revealed his Geelong-based Scale offices were raided by Australian Federal Police as part of an investigation into an alleged $150 million tax fraud across four associated businesses.

Now Page 13 can reveal some of Collard’s key staff, including former K-Rock radio host and Geelong identity Roxie Bennett, have been spoken to by the PI looking into the company’s financial matters as part of due diligence.

Bennett is the head of strategic relationships at Scale Facilitation and was in New York in December for the flashy opening of the company’s headquarters on the 82nd floor of the World Trade Centre’s iconic Freedom Tower.

Her presence raised eyebrows among political circles given her once tight-and-then-not-so-tight relationship with now Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, who also attended courtesy of Scale.

Headlines like “how to get revenge on your ex, ruin their preselection chances” ran back in 2006 when Bennett, a former ALP member, made branch stacking allegations against former boyfriend Marles who was then ACTU assistant secretary. The former couple reportedly met in 1997 abd lived together through 1999 and part of 2000.

We digress.

While Bennett is still holding fat at still being paid, that is not so for many of the other Scale employees.

Page 13 has been told several key employees and former friends of Collard have recently resigned “effective immediately.”

There are whispers that US staff are soon to lodge claims with the New York State Department of Labor.

Watch this space.

This week it was revealed Collard, a former PwC partner, will be forced to move out of his luxury apartment on New York’s so-called Billionaires’ Row.

David Collard with Marles and Dutton at the office opening last December Picture: Supplied

His Scale business has been accused of “squatting” at the top of the World Trade Center only eight months after the lavish opening attended by both Marles and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.

But according to court documents filed by his landlord, former cab driver turned billionaire Chinese investor and art collector Yiqian Liu, that Collard failed to pay the $US75,000 monthly rent in May and June.

But perhaps our favourite story involving Collard is that of his loyal lapdog, Jimmy Fatone, being known as the Turtle to Collard’s Vincent Chase as in cult TV series Entourage.

Fatone, the former owner of a fish and chip shop called, wait for it, the Slippery Mackerel, is so chuffed at his moniker that he has been telling all and sundry around Geelong’s pubs to “call me Turtle.”

No, you can’t make this stuff up.

But one question remains, where has all the cash gone?