John Bernard Adams: the man at the centre of what could be Australia’s biggest Ponzi scheme

An enigmatic figure at the centre of what could be Australia’s biggest Ponzi scheme did deals with a vast network of contacts gathered over several decades, including racing identities and football heavyweights.

John Bernard Adams was a suburban lawyer who could be responsible for one of the nation’s biggest Ponzi schemes.

What links a staid suburban law practice to strip clubs and gangster pubs, big betting, AFL football clubs and racing?

In the case of the late John Bernard Adams, the enigmatic figure at the centre of what threatens to be Australia’s biggest Ponzi scheme, it’s the network of contacts he gathered over several decades.

One end of the business was the usual wills, conveyancing, family and small business matters that are the bread and butter of suburban lawyers.

John Bernard Adams.

But, hiding in plain sight, it seems Adams used his respectable veneer as a cover for more than the usual mortgage loans to honest investors.

“John was a fixer,” says one person who has known him all their life. “He knew everyone.”

He also did deals with people with unexplained income, according to sources close to his family and associates.

Adams did business with everyone from racing identities to football heavyweights to publicans.

High on his list of victims are bookmakers, a breed often accused of quietly raking cash from the “grey economy” by betting “on the nod” with trusted punters.

High on the list of victims was bookmakers.

Senior lawyers, bookies, doctors and even a professor are fearing million-dollar losses.

But also among those fearing million-dollar losses are senior lawyers, a professor, doctors and a swelling but unknown number of others keen to keep their financial affairs private.

One small bookie lost his wife in a road crash recently, invested what he had left with Adams and moved to Queensland to mend a broken heart. Now he will be broke as well.

Adams and his wife Judy raised their family in one of Kew’s better streets, Mont Victor Rd, but recently moved to be closer to one of their daughters.

The move several kilometres east meant a longer commute to Adams’ offices in Upper Heidelberg Rd, Ivanhoe. But that was something Adams was prepared to tolerate to help with his grandchildren.

It was all in keeping with the image of a kindly, trustworthy, grandfatherly figure, quick with a joke with the guests at his weekly lunches, often in the Vietnamese restaurant opposite the Ivanhoe practice.

But underneath the easy camaraderie and apparent generosity was a mind like a rat trap, according to those who knew him well.

Football insiders have told the Herald Sun that Adams revealed his true nature with his attempt to sell out “his” team North Melbourne to Carlton in a merger deal with the then dominant business figure, brewery king John Elliott.

It was a remarkably cold-blooded act from a man whose father Jack Adams was a Kangaroos legend.

North Melbourne Football Club president Jack Adams being congratulated by his sons, Denis, 17, and John, 20 when he was appointed in 1961.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Adams cultivated some dodgy “mates” including bent Strathmore pharmacist Maurie Drew.

Drew (now dead) illegally sold drugs to trainers and jockeys — including a Melbourne Cup winner — and to footballers, boxers and gangsters. As a precaution, he would make his teenage children place the drugs on a bench from which the often high-profile buyers would take them.

Among such “visitors” to Drew’s family home was hit man Andrew “Benji” Veniamin and gangster Alphonse Gangitano.

The Veniamin connection extended to the little killer going out with a stripper who worked at a King St strip joint linked to Adams’ law firm.

Associates also mention links with the Mens Gallery strip joint and with the Brunswick Club, where gangster Lewis Moran was shot dead during the underworld war in 2004.

While Adams was happy to do business on the shady side of the street, he showed few obvious signs of gangster-style excess. No limousines, bling or strings of racehorses.

Assosiates have mentioned links with The Mens Gallery (the former Duke of York Hotel)

Police gather evidence at the shooting scene at Brunswick Club in Melbourne where crime family "patriarch" Lewis Moran was gunned down & associate Wrout critically injured. Picture: Paul Tresize

But they do own an immensely valuable sprawling coastal property overlooking the beach at Big Hill just outside Lorne, and it’s hard to believe John Adams didn’t gather a property portfolio around Australia, if not beyond.

The end came for Adams on Saturday night, October 21. As 81-year-old Paul McCartney played his Melbourne concert at Docklands stadium, the 82-year-old lawyer reportedly called a family dinner which would become the last supper.

Details of his death vary, which is one of the odd things about the case. But one friend of the family says they believe his wife Judy went upstairs to bed while he stayed below. When she went down to find out where he was, he was dead.

Did John Bernard Adams take his own life? The only people who know are not saying.

One thing is certain: his family reacted instantly, ensuring he was buried with a minimum of publicity the same week, with only a small group of mourners attending the discreet service at Immaculate Conception Church in Hawthorn.

Alphonse Gangitano visited Strathmore pharmacist Maurie Drew, who was linked to Adams. Picture: Ben Swinnerton

Andrew Veniamin visited Maurie Drew’s house and had a girlfriend who worked at The Men’s Gallery.

No one beyond those invited knew of the service because the family placed no death or funeral notices.

It seems an bizarrely secretive exit for a man regarded as one of the key football powerbrokers behind the AFL national competition — after registering “Australian Football League” and selling the name to the league at a huge profit.

But insider trading in football is the least of it. The money at stake in a tangled web of mortgage loans could run to tens of millions of dollars, with some racing people estimating it runs to more than $100m.

It will take bamboozled legal watchdogs and police a long time to unravel, if they ever do. Where black money is involved, those who have lost it cannot queue up for any legal compensation.

Maybe some of them will try jumping the queue.