Reformed underworld figure or wife beater? Acai Underworld founder Bill Trad exposed
Famed acai dessert mogul Billy ‘Acai Bill’ Trad from Acai Underworld has been unmasked as a domestic violence offender and fake gangster | VIDEO
A man who built a cult-like following behind an acai dessert business under the pretext of being a reformed gangster is actually a domestic violence offender convicted of beating – and hospitalising – his wife and breaking into a domestic violence refuge where she was sheltering, a court has heard.
Acai Underworld founder Billy “Acai Bill” Trad has shaped his public persona and popularity as a transformed former underworld figure, claiming to have recently been released from jail for gang-related offending.
He has garnered millions of views on his social media channels for his unique marketing style, giving off the aura of a changed man who had done his time, declaring that “my past is my past” and he wasn’t “claiming to be anything I’m not”, while defiantly declaring he was “taking over” the acai world.
His message has even landed him glitzy write-ups in newspapers and appearances in podcasts, but he has neglected to tell his millions of viewers that in 2022 he was imprisoned for three months for seriously assaulting his wife when he punched her in back of the head and neck and grabbed her by the hair, causing her to be admitted to hospital.
In 2023, he was jailed again for 16 months after he broke into a Salvation Army domestic violence shelter the same victim was sheltering in, pleading guilty to break and enter with intent to commit serious indictable offence and contravening a domestic violence order. Other charges of destroying and damaging property and stalking and intimidating were dropped.
And when he was sentenced for armed robbery of dozens of retail stores and petrol stations in the early 2000s, the sentencing judge noted that his victims “were usually young people, working alone in jobs that were not particularly well paid”.
Recently, Trad spoke about “doing 12 years” for $240,000 “worth of product” in a newly released video where he detailed his “last 24 hours of freedom” before being sentenced to 12 years in jail. He was released on parole after eight years in custody.
And what was that product? Much of it, according to court documents obtained by The Australian, was cash, cigarettes, phone cards and CDs.
It came from dozens of armed hold-ups in western Sydney, where he terrorised young shopkeepers – sometimes teenage girls – to feed his addiction to drugs, including heroin.
“The victims were usually young people, working alone in jobs that were not particularly well paid and that on all occasions the victims were put in fear, having knives or bars forced into their backs, being forced to the ground, being threatened and being led into store rooms and the like,” a court heard.
He’s done everything he can to hide his past, after cashing in on the burgeoning acai dessert industry now worth $750m annually in Australia.
Trad is doubling down on his hyped-up criminal past, with big ambitions to expand his empire by opening new acai stores, and has even opened a sandwich store.
“We’re not here to take part, we’re here to take over, baby,” he often says.
He told The Australian Financial Review last year that fans were coming from across the country.
“They all want selfies with me,” he said. “Not everyone can use that name,” he added of the Acai Underworld brand.
In June 2022, Trad was sentenced to seven months imprisonment, with a non-parole period of three months, after a jealousy-fuelled attack on his partner where he punched her in the back of the head and neck.
She also told police he “struck (her) in the face, sides of her head, arms and legs”.
He also grabbed her by her hair and ponytail.
He pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm and stalking and intimidating for the attack, which started when he falsely accused her of infidelity.
Then in October 2022, in another fit of jealous rage, Trad broke into a Salvation Army domestic violence refuge his then former partner was in.
“About a month prior to the offending, the victim noticed that the offender was behaving in a paranoid manner once more, and continually inquired with the victim about whether she had a boyfriend and where he was, and asked what men came to visit her when the offender was not around,” an agreed facts sheet reads.
He failed to break into the property through a metal screen door, breaking it in the process, before smashing a window and entering the property.
He was sentenced to a two-year and two-month prison sentence, with a non-parole period of 16 months, and was released on March 4 last year.
Now Trad is before the courts again for allegedly breaching an apprehended violence order.
The convictions were raised in court by the prosecution in opposing a bail application Trad had made on February 12 this year.
“There are concerns when there is a history of violence where the offender has been convicted on the complainant where the offender has received a term of imprisonment and if Your Honour can see the records, shortly after being released on parole, after that there’s been further offending, which has been a concern to the court and the defendant again is back before the courts for breaching the AVO which is a court order,” a prosecutor told a magistrate.
Trad was granted bail and has pleaded not guilty to the current charge.
He will face court on Friday.
Additional reporting: Joanna Panagopoulos