How Ken Gamble escaped murder by hitman after he investigated conman Peter Clarence Foster

Australia’s most notorious criminal conman Peter Clarence Foster allegedly ordered a hit man to kill his nemesis private investigator. LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

Australia’s most notorious criminal conman Peter Clarence Foster allegedly ordered a hit man to kill his nemesis private investigator Ken Gamble.

Foster allegedly discussed the price and even a bonus for the killer if the job was done quickly after Mr Gamble hunted him down, called in police and obtained a court order to freeze his overseas bank accounts.

Mr Gamble told the Eye Spy podcast Foster had allegedly contacted Australian underworld figures wanted by police who were hiding out in the Philippines, to do the hit.

“I had informants and sources all over the place that were telling me what was going on. And we were monitoring him very closely, very closely …. and we knew a lot about what he was up to. So I knew that the stakes at that point were very high because I’d taken a lot of money from him,” Mr Gamble said.

“The Philippines is a place where you can you can get people murdered very, very cheaply … It can be a very dangerous place if you’re if you’re in the sights of someone who wants you killed.”

Foster has never been charged over the allegations.

Ken Gamble has regularly investigated and caught notoriously elusive conman Peter Clarence Foster. Picture : Liam Driver/ News Corp News Network

Listen to the new episode of the Eye Spy podcast below:

Mr Gamble has been hunting Foster for years as part of fraud investigations into his various cons, including tracing more than $30 million dollars linked to his most lucrative scam, The Sports Trading Club.

He located him last year with the help of a secret Agent X, and called police who arrested him in dramatic scenes on a popular beach for an alleged betting scam.

“I ended up going up to Port Douglas and locking on to him with my female operative, Agent X,” Mr Gamble said.

Australian conman Peter Foster in Suva back in 2006.

“I booked into a resort there and started growing a beard and got a hat and sunglasses the standard private investigator to disguise.

“It took me about three days to lock on to him. And from that point, we started surveilling him, you know, on a daily basis, we realised that he had a couple of little puppy dogs with him and he’d take them for a walk every day.”

But after failing to turn up for a court appearance over the alleged betting scam, Queensland police have issued an arrest warrant and Mr Gamble is once again hunting Foster.

Foster has been in and out of jail since 1995 for a variety of fraud offences including a multimillion-dollar weight-loss scam.

He was charged last year with offences including publishing false and misleading material to obtain advantage, dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception, and knowingly dealing with proceeds of crime with intent to conceal.

The charges were dropped in NSW but Queensland police then charged him and issued an arrest warrant.

Mr Gamble has worked around the world and rescued a little girl from Egypt.

Among his most famous cases was the rescue of little Australian girl who had been kidnapped and taken to Egypt and busting an Olympics ticketing scam in Beijing.

He is working pro bono on the mysterious disappearance of Belgian backpacker Theo Hayez in Byron Bay in May 2019.

Missing Belgain backpacker Theo Hayez. This is a CCTV frame of him in Byron on the night he disappeared.

Mr Gamble has already uncovered information which he believes shows Mr Hayez did not meet with an accident.

“I when I the more I looked at the case, the more I thought, hang on a minute, there’s something not right about this accident,” he said.

“You know, someone just doesn’t fall off the rocks and vanish, but their phone stays on for 13 more hours. If someone fell off the rocks in Byron Bay, particularly in Cozy Corner where he was last recorded, the phone would have gone in the water with him, because he had it in his hand the whole time.”

“I wasn’t satisfied that enough had been done in this investigation. So I decided after meetings with the family, the representative of the family, I decided that I would assist them.”

Originally published as How Ken Gamble escaped murder by hitman after he investigated conman Peter Clarence Foster