Dog of a day for king conman Peter Foster

Peter Foster had an escape plan — but he didn’t count on police responding so swiftly to evidence he was up to old tricks.

Detectives arrest disgraced businessman and conman Peter Foste on a Port Douglas beach on Thursday. Picture: IFW Global Private Investigation

Peter Foster’s escape plan was in motion: Buy a luxury motor yacht in Port Douglas in far north Queensland then slip out of the country before authorities caught up on his latest, greatest con — the one that could put him away for good.

He didn’t count on NSW police responding so swiftly to evidence he was up to old tricks, nor did he know that a private investigator, Ken Gamble, was so closely on his tail.

For the past month, Foster had been unaware that while he had been hiding out in Port Douglas, 1800km north of his Gold Coast base, Gamble had been in town too, tracking the conman for a scammed client.

When Foster took his two dogs for regular morning walks on Port Douglas’s Four Mile Beach, Gamble and an undercover female operative known as “Agent X” were specks in the distance, using a camera with an 80x optical zoom.

At night when Foster was illuminated by the light of his computer in his secluded two-bedroom villa, Gamble and Agent X were often walking past.

“We were able on some occasions to overhear conversations of him talking on the phone,” Gamble told The Australian. “He will be shocked just how close we have been to him.

“He had no idea.”

Evidence Gamble gathered was passed to NSW police, and on Thursday Foster’s northern getaway came to an abrupt end.

At 7.30am, two undercover policemen dressed as joggers crash-tackled the 57-year-old on Four Mile Beach as he walked his dogs, Che Che and Luigina.

NSW fraud squad detectives had launched a strike force to investigate the Queensland conman and he is facing about 15 charges of fraud and money laundering.

Gamble was there for the arrest and said Foster struggled and “let out a few screams” before expressing concerns for the welfare of his dogs.

The 36m vessel with its own spa pool that Peter Foster was allegedly planning to use to flee Australia. Picture: IFW Global Private Investigation

He says the case and hefty maximum penalties on the ­charges are the biggest threat Foster has faced to his freedom. Money laundering alone carries a maximum 20-year sentence.

Foster had fled to Port Douglas from the Gold Coast after The Australian reported in June that he was running a gambling scam called Sport Predictions, using the alias Bill Dawson.

The scheme purported to use experts to place wagers on sporting events — with the motto “we make money out of other people’s mistakes” — but diverted the funds to Foster without the bets being placed, police will allege.

His intended “escape boat”, a 36m vessel with its own spa pool, was up for sale in Port Douglas for $1.47m.

Foster, due to his notoriety, sent an alleged accomplice — his friend, the real Bill Dawson — to inspect the yacht and put in an offer of $900,000.

The death in May of Foster’s mother, Louise Foster-Poletti, at the age of 88 after a long illness had removed the last thing tying him to Australia.

Gamble was on to the impending yacht purchase, taking photos of, and even on, the vessel in recent weeks.

He says Foster was planning to travel to Vanuatu or Fiji.

“The reason he came up here is to flee the country,” Gamble said from Port Douglas.

“He came up here specifically with the goal of getting the yacht and then leaving the country, after Sport Predictions was exposed.

“He had a plan to renovate the boat, decorate it and turn it into a floating operation centre for (the scam).”

In an earlier gambling scam called the Sports Trading Club, Foster had duped hundreds of Australian and international investors out of $29.6m, ingeniously claiming to use savants to predict sporting winners.

He was convicted and jailed in NSW in 2018 for fewer than 18 months over that scam, on a relatively minor charge of deceptively using the pseudonym Mark ­Hughes.

Released from prison, Foster replicated STC, changing its name to Sport Predictions, this time ­allegedly targeting Asian ­investors.

A Hong Kong man thought he was getting rich when he was brought to Melbourne for the Australian Open in January by Foster, using the Bill Dawson alias. It was all part of an elaborate plot to get more money from him.

Peter Foster under surveillance in Port Douglas with Che Che and Luigina. Picture: IFW Global Private Investigation

“(Foster) hired an event management company and provided a VIP service to the client, a dinner and lots of pretty girls — basically made them feel like kings,” Gamble said.

“He used the client’s money to do it. That was the big sting.”

When “Mr Dawson” failed to turn up to a planned meeting in Melbourne, claiming he had to ­urgently travel to Estonia, the investor became suspicious. By then, he had handed over $2m and it was all gone.

“(Foster) made out that something had gone terribly wrong with the trader, and they unfor­tunately had lost everything,” Gamble said.

“But he said they would definitely make it up again and then he tried to get the client to put more and more money in.”

By pure chance, someone told the investor to call Gamble, who immediately realised who was behind it, after spending years in­vestigating Foster’s previous gambling scam.

“I said, ‘I know exactly who that person is, and it’s not Bill Dawson’,” Gamble said.

The investor sent Gamble audio recordings of his Zoom chats with “Mr Dawson”, and it was clear who was really talking.

“I nearly fell off my seat,” Gamble said. “I knew at that point, I’m now gonna get him arrested again.”

Gamble called NSW police, and fraud squad detectives launched the strike force.

In June, with the allegedly incriminating recording set to air in a podcast, The King of Sting, The Australian reported on Foster’s connection to Sport Predictions.

Foster, an undischarged bankrupt, was at the time living in a $2000-a-week waterfront mansion at Ashmore and driving a $250,000 Bentley convertible with personalised number plates. He had a Rolls-Royce in his ­garage, but used a more discreet black Mercedes to get out of town.

“As soon as Sport Predictions was exposed in The Australian on the Saturday, he decided to leave the Gold Coast and take Bill Dawson with him,” Gamble said.

“He packed up and he left in a Mercedes with Dawson and another man who’s 80 years old and Foster’s two little dogs. They drove all the way up here to Port Douglas.”

Foster rented a villa near Four Mile Beach, driving back to the Gold Coast for a brief visit and then returning. He had a private chef in tow, identified through surveillance, who, Gamble said, was going to be the chef on the boat.

Gamble arrived in Port Douglas mid-July after a tip about Foster’s whereabouts, initially putting beaches under surveillance because Foster liked to walk his dogs.

Information came through that Foster was in touch with a local artist, who was put under watch.

“Foster turns up (at the artist’s) on a Sunday in the Mercedes,” he said. “That’s how we got him, then we followed him.

“Even since we’ve been here, he’s made a million dollars,” ­Gamble said.