Super swindler fallout after nabbing hard earned life savings

A shearer, a health worker and a teacher all lost their life savings to a jailed Melbourne property developer who told them their investments would be safe.

Victims who lost their superannuation to a Melbourne property developer’s scheme have detailed the fallout.

Before being misled into investing $200,000 of their life savings into a self-managed super scheme, the woman says she was outgoing and her partner upbeat.

“We were content, happy, healthy, active. Financially secure,” the woman’s victim impact statement reads.

“(We) enjoyed family holidays. Enjoyed friends and family’s company and were outgoing and trusting.

“After, we became stressed and took up unhealthy habits. Lost motivation and drive for life.”

This was after former Melbourne property developer Mudasir Naseeruddin convinced them to roll $201,000 of their life savings into newly created self-managed super funds, only for it to be withdrawn and used to buy shares for personal gain.

The Indigenous couple, a shearer and Aboriginal health worker, would only ever recover about $10,000.

In his victim impact statement, her partner says he was a “very outgoing and upbeat type of person”.

“After this (I) became very withdrawn. Don’t want to interact with anyone else. Gave all my mates away,” he says.

“Thirty years of hard work down the drain.”

Mudasir Mohammed Naseeruddin has admitted to duping investors of more than $520,000 and for withdrawing $550,000 for personal use.

Victoria’s County Court Judge Fiona Todd released five victim impact statements following Mr Naseeruddin’s sentence in late December, requesting their identities not be reported.

Mr Naseeruddin was jailed for four years and four months.

The statements, some handwritten, give insight into how the now 33-year-old used religion and personal relationships to lure victims into the scheme.

Judge Todd told Mr Naseeruddin his treatment of the couple, who are from regional NSW, and his other victims was “nothing short of ruinous” in her sentencing remarks delivered in late December.

After the Indigenous couple, another victim who is an Aboriginal woman — a health worker — also supplied a statement, following an investment of $50,000 with the former Melbourne property developer in 2019.

Judge Todd said she was having financial difficulties when someone she knew from church suggested she contact Mr Naseeruddin.

After completing a sign up document, she decided she did not want to proceed, but the court heard during sentencing Mr Naseeruddin falsely told her cancelling the SMSF would lead to “repercussions” with the Australian Taxation Office.

In her victim impact statement, she says the crime caused her and her family to suffer “extreme stress financially”.

“It has impacted my family relationships badly, not to mention work, which has also been difficult,” she says.

“I’ve had to get financial as well as emotional counselling to help me navigate my way back to normalcy.

“I am very upset to know that I was put in this position and I hope that this will never happen to another person.”

A separate statement supplied by another victim who was a teacher and invested $124,000 reported he is riddled with anxiety.

“Life was really good before I met Mudasir Naseeruddin who convinced me to invest with him … and give the best returns on super,” he says.

“He had used faith and religion always to advance his business and dealings with innocent victims like me.”

Finally, a pharmacist who invested and lost about $70,000, says he was a “victim of financial terrorism”.

“I do not forgive Mudasir for what he has done to me,” he says.

“He (owes) debt to me which needs to be repaid. Whether in this world … or the hereafter.”

An Australian Securities and Investments Commission investigation revealed Mr Naseeruddin duped a total of $520,000 from six investors by encouraging them to roll their hard earned, life savings into self-managed superannuation funds.

But instead of investing it into property developments as promised, that money was dishonestly loaned to two of Mr Naseeruddin’s companies, Secure Investments Pty Ltd and Aquila Group Pty Ltd.

He used his position as a director of one of the companies to withdraw more than $550,000 to buy shares in a security company for his own benefit, which Judge Todd said ultimately was of no “personal enrichment” to Mr Naseeruddin due to his poor management of the “chaotic” scheme he created.

However, Judge Todd said it was “of serious consequence to your victims.”

“Your victims were people who earned modest incomes whose work was important,” she said. “A particular feature of the offending was the vulnerability of victims.”

Earlier, Judge Todd noted victims had “painstakingly” built up their life savings following careers in teaching and pharmacy among other industries.

“(You) exploited relationships (and) trust with people in your own community,” she said.

The guilty party migrated to Australia from India with his family, and was partnered in an arranged marriage in 2013. That relationship has since ended.

While Judge Todd acknowledged he was supported by his father and has good prospects for rehabilitation, she said she regarded his moral culpability as high.