Australia’s most notorious conman Peter Foster will strike again, says alleged victim

Pilot who allegedly lost millions in Bitcoin to Australia’s most notorious conman, Peter Foster, says he should never have been given a chance to vanish.

Alleged Peter Foster scam victim Konstantinos 'Dino' Stylianopoulos says ‘scorpion’ will strike again.

A former fighter pilot allegedly scammed out of millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin by Australia’s most notorious conman, Peter Foster, has told of his disbelief that authorities let him vanish.

Konstantinos “Dino” Stylianopoulos says Foster should never have been given an opportunity to disappear while facing serious fraud charges over the alleged scam, and will keep fleecing unwitting victims until he’s in jail.

“It’s like a scorpion, right? Why did you bite me? Because I’m a scorpion,” Mr Stylianopoulos said.

He was speaking for the first time after a jurisdictional debacle, a decision to release Foster on bail and a failure in supervision left the serial conman at large.

Serial conman Peter Foster is arrested by detectives on a Port Douglas beach. Picture: IFW Global

Mr Stylianopoulos, who trained as an air force pilot before working at commercial airlines, was living in Hong Kong when he was allegedly defrauded of $2 million in Bitcoin in a gambling scheme, Sport Predictions, run by Foster using the alias Bill Dawson.

Police allege purported bets on sporting events were never placed, and the money was funnelled to Foster, who despite being an undischarged bankrupt became flush with cash, living in a $2000-a-week Gold Coast waterfront mansion and driving a Bentley convertible, with a Rolls-Royce in the garage.

Compounding the blow to Mr Stylianopoulos, Bitcoin’s value has soared, and his lost crypto­currency would today be worth at least $8 million. Mr Stylianopoulos, 54, said he could barely think about the scale of the loss but his priority was ensuring Foster could not financially destroy anyone else. “In Australia, I don’t believe anybody else has hurt more ­people,” he said.

“Getting anything back from somebody like this … is very difficult. The bigger objective is to stop him.”

Foster was crash-tackled by undercover police on a beach at Port Douglas in Far North Queensland in August last year over the alleged scam.

Due to Bitcoin transfers being made through a Sydney cryptocurrency exchange, he was extradited to NSW to face fraud charges.

Conman Peter Foster being police escorted through Cairns airport on his way to Sydney. Picture: Stewart McLean

NSW prosecutors then told Mr Stylianopoulos that the conman should have been charged in Queensland, where the alleged offending took place, and Foster was released on bail to live in a multimillion-dollar mansion in Sydney’s Dover Heights while jurisdictional issues were sorted.

Queensland police are understood to have agreed he had a case to answer and readied warrants for his arrest.

But on May 20, Foster disappeared from his lawyer’s Sydney office and failed to appear in Downing Centre Local Court, his lawyer saying at the time he was “unable to be located”.

NSW prosecutors withdrew charges that day, and Foster’s Queensland lawyer, Chris Hannay, said the conman was making his way north to “face the music”.

The Queensland Police Service said in a statement on Tuesday that in co-operation with other Australian policing jurisdictions, it was “continuing to pursue a number of lines of inquiry to locate a 58-year-old man wanted in relation to alleged fraud offences … Anyone with information is urged to contact police.”

NSW police are refusing to comment on whether Foster is being investigated for removing or tampering with the GPS tracking device he was ordered to wear as part of his bail conditions.

The man behind Britain’s “Cheriegate” scandal – in which he became close to Tony and Cherie Blair through his then-girlfriend Carole Caplin – has a long history of absconding when he is faced with potential jail time.

In 2014, police arrested Foster in Byron Bay after he spent almost a year on the run on a contempt of court charge, but only after he was tracked down by a long-time nemesis, private investigator Ken Gamble, and a TV news crew.

In Fiji, Foster was once arrested in his underpants after diving into a river from a bridge in an attempt to evade police.

Mr Stylianopoulos said prosecutors contacted him a day before Foster was to be released on bail.

“There was no chance for me to really voice any opinion on it,” he said. “My biggest question is why didn’t they co-ordinate with the other police department to do just a handover?”