Eric Mavropoulos’s family seek to ‘disentangle’ gem dealer Angela Chu from their opal mining father
Angela Chu says she cares deeply about Eric Mavropoulos, 86. But his family claim she is taking advantage of him.
The family of an ageing opal miner and a younger woman who moved in as his carer are locked in a legal battle spanning the red dirt of Coober Pedy to a suburban Melbourne magistrates court amid claims of missing gems.
The opal may be known as the stone of love but for 86-year-old miner Ieroklis “Eric” Mavropoulos and his adult children, there is no love lost for 50-year-old Angela Chu – the woman they have taken to court, claiming she took advantage of him.
“I’ve always remembered my dad as an independent person. He’s very stubborn – a traditional Greek,” Mr Mavropoulos’ son, Bill, says.
But Ms Chu – who hails from Hong Kong and is known as an international gem dealer – tells a different story.
“He told me the council is about to auction his property,” she says. “He burst into tears and I took him to the council. He said he worked hard all his life to build the four shops. He wasn’t paying the rates. I feel pity for him. I’m Chinese. Chinese, Indian, Italian, Greek – the old-fashioned culture, we have to respect and help the elderly. I’m not trying to extort money from Eric. I come from a wealthy family.”
In a photo supplied by Ms Chu, they appear content sitting next to each other. Ms Chu says she met Mr Mavropoulos in early 2020 because she was interested in renting one of the shops he owns in Coober Pedy.
Ms Chu is known in the cash-based Australian opal industry as a seller and buyer of gems, although she says she is a “small buyer compared to Eric”.
“I only buy like $1000, or $2000. Maybe $3000 or $4000 parcels (of opals),” she says.
Coober Pedy, a township in South Australia of about 1500 people, is at the centre of the country’s opal industry. It is also about 1500km from Heidelberg Magistrates Court in Melbourne, which deals with gritty street crime. It also handles intervention order applications, which is how the Mavropoulos family came to be there, along with Ms Chu.
In April, the Mavropoulos family launched an intervention order application to try to disentangle Ms Chu from their father’s life.
“It’s been a journey of trying to try to extricate him from her,” Bill says.
The relationship between Mr Mavropoulos and Ms Chu came to a head in Heidelberg Magistrates Court on August 1, when affidavit evidence in support of the intervention order application was filed.
Since December 2022, Bill and his sister Christina have suspected something was not right. Christina told him she was concerned that Ms Chu had taken Mr Mavropoulos out until 1am, according to the affidavit.
According to Bill’s affidavit, it is alleged Ms Chu withdrew more than $39,000 from Mr Mavropoulos’ business account and advertised his Coober Pedy house as a bed and breakfast, while “not directing money” to his business bank account.
Ms Chu says she opened the account to pay the council rates and used the money from the bed and breakfast to pay utility bills.
Heart of the matter
And as for the opals? In his affidavit, Bill claims: “The respondent had sold opal belonging to the affected person (Mr Mavropoulos) and retained the proceeds.”
Ms Chu denied that she took any of Mr Mavropoulos’ opals.
“He never had any opal in Coober Pedy. He told me he has got his opal in a safe-deposit box in Melbourne,” she says.
During the court hearing, it was alleged Ms Chu had “integrated” her way into Mr Mavropoulos’ life for “financial gain”. Magistrate Meagan Keogh admonished Ms Chu, at one stage asking her to sit up in her chair because she was slouching. “We’re in court, not in a banana lounge by the pool,” Ms Keogh said.
“I’m sorry, I’m nervous,” Ms Chu replied.
Eric Mavropoulos arrived in Australia as a 16-year-old in the 1960s from a village called Trapezounta in the north of Greece.
He isn’t someone who could easily be taken advantage of, Bill says.
“When he first arrived, he had a number of jobs. He owned restaurants. He shot crocodiles. He settled on mining for opals,” he says.
Mr Mavropoulos has been based in Coober Pedy for a number of years, Bill says, although he owns property in Melbourne – where he would sell opal – and in the past also travelled overseas for business.
Bill says when Ms Chu returned to Melbourne just before Christmas last year with his father, Christina grew increasingly concerned about his wellbeing.
According to Bill’s affidavit, the Mavropoulos’ family doctor allegedly told him to take his father to hospital due to “dangerously” high blood sugar and that they were told after cognitive testing he was suffering a “moderate” level of decline.
The family was concerned Ms Chu had declared herself to be Mr Mavropoulos’ carer.
When they asked about this, Ms Chu claims, they had acted to stop her Centrelink carer benefits.
According to Bill’s affidavit, the family also attended Westpac, where they allegedly discovered Ms Chu had set up a card linked to an account with Mr Mavropoulos’ business, Alva Holdings.
“(A Westpac staff member) confirmed that a new bank account of Alva had another signatory on it and that signatory was the respondent (Ms Chu),” Bill’s affidavit reads.
The affidavit states: “The financial accounts of Alva up to that date ... show drawings from the bank account set up by the respondent (Ms Chu) of more than $39,000.”
Ms Chu denies this, and says: “It’s not going into my bank account.”
Mr Mavropoulos’ children issued an eviction notice to have Ms Chu move out of his Coober Pedy property, according to the affidavit.
A complaint was made to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, the Adult Safeguarding Unit in South Australia and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the affidavit states.
A South Australian police spokeswoman said officers had received a report concerning Ms Chu and Mr Mavropoulos, but “no criminal offence has been disclosed at this time”.
A spokeswoman for AFCA said they could not comment due to privacy.
Police called in
Christina Mavropoulos was, according to her evidence filed in the court, increasingly concerned about her father’s diminished capacity and the control Ms Chu seemed to have over him. And in April this year she called the police.
On April 21, Ms Chu turned up at the Mavropoulos family home in Viewbank, a suburb in Melbourne’s northeast where Mr Mavropoulos and Christina were staying.
“I observed the affected person (Mr Mavropoulos) in his pyjamas answer the door. I then observed the respondent (Ms Chu) attempting to lure him outside the house and heard her requesting he leave the premises with her,” the affidavit reads.
“I then came to the door and stood in between the affected person and the respondent.
“I notified the respondent (Ms Chu) that my family had reported the respondent to VIC police, SA police and several other agencies.”
Ms Mavropoulos said after the police arrived, she saw Ms Chu leave, according to her affidavit.
“Prior to the events of 21 April 2023, I am aware the respondent has been incessantly calling, messaging and sending mail to the affected person, to our immediate family, extended family, friends and colleagues since December 2022. In my mind, this latest event was an escalation of her conduct,” she says in her affidavit.
Ms Chu has been issued with an interim intervention order.
She denies all the allegations against her, and says the interim intervention order is “unfair”.
The Weekend Australian is not suggesting that because the interim order has been made the allegations reported by Mr Mavropoulos’ family are true, just what has happened here is still to be decided in court.
“In 14 months not even one family member showed up (in Coober Pedy). Then he told me he doesn't want to stay in Melbourne because he can’t get along with his children,” Ms Chu says.
The Mavropoulos family has all but given up hope of finding the missing opals and, as Bill says, the best they can hope for is to disentangle Angela Chu from their father’s life.
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