Hamish McLaren’s ex-wife fights to unravel car loan nightmare

The ex-wife of serial fraudster Hamish McLaren fears being saddled with $400,000 in loans she knew nothing about.

Hamish McLren and Bec Rosen on their wedding day in 2010.

The ex-wife of serial fraudster Hamish McLaren fears being saddled with $400,000 in loans she knew nothing about after police last week admitted an investigation into the alleged forgery of her signature had stalled.

Almost two years after she filed a complaint, police have told ­Bec Rosen there is little they can do without missing documents that she is purported to have signed for the money.

McLaren, who has pleaded guilty to unrelated fraud charges, allegedly took out the loans to buy two Range Rovers, an Audi — for his mistress — and a Corolla in the name of Kona Holdings, a shell company he used to swindle other victims out of millions of dollars.

Ms Rosen told The Australian that McLaren had registered her as a co-director of Kona Holdings, and listed her as a guarantor on the loans, allegedly forging her signature.

The couple, who separated in 2015 after five years of marriage, kept their finances separate and she discovered the existence of the loans only when debt collectors arrived on her doorstep.

In a 39-page statement to police, Ms Rosen provided evidence she was working on the days the loan documents were signed, and supposedly witnessed, in Sydney.

But in emails to Ms Rosen, northern beaches detectives from Strike Force Garigal say they have been unable to obtain the original signed loan documents from the financiers needed to “conduct handwriting analysis’’ for the ­investigation.

Ms Rosen contacted police about the issue in July 2017, shortly after McLaren, 48, was arrested by detectives and charged with dozens of fraud offences involving 15 victims.

The self-styled hedge fund ­investor has pleaded guilty to 18 fraud charges, relating to more than $7 million, and is set to be sentenced on June 13.

McLaren’s fraud spree is the subject of The Australian’s chart-topping podcast series Who The Hell Is Hamish?’, the next instalment of which is released this afternoon.

Ms Rosen, whose story ­appeared in episode three, said she had been eager to share her ordeal with The Australian after the police investigation stalled.

“The police have never been able to help me with all of my fraud charges,” she said.

“That’s a massive reason I’ve been so keen to be involved in the podcast.”

Three of the loans were ­financed by Alphera Financial Services, a division of BMW ­Finance, and signed at a Sydney Porsche dealership in late 2014.

The signatures were supposedly witnessed by employees of the dealership, but in emails to Ms Rosen, the employees later said they had not seen her sign the documents.

They said McLaren had been a client of the dealership for many years and had told them his wife did not want to travel to Sydney to sign for the loan because she had agoraphobia.

Ms Rosen later discovered a fourth loan from St George Bank, signed in 2014, for an Audi given by McLaren, who was declared bankrupt in 2016, to her son’s girlfriend.

In some of the signed documents, Ms Rosen’s signature ­appears noticeably different, and in others her date and place of birth are recorded incorrectly.

It took Ms Rosen two years to trace the car loans.

“There are four or five car loans he put my name on and I’ve been harassed by creditors for over two years,” Ms Rosen said.

“We went to the police with all of this information, with statements from people who’d signed as guarantors on these $250,000 car loans and had said ‘yes, you were not there’.

“I’ve spent so much time trying to cover all these things I’m now liable for and the (police) ­response was, ‘we’ve done what we can do, we will keep trying’.”

A northern beaches detective told Ms Rosen last week that investigations had hit a dead end.

“BMW Finance (Alphera) voluntarily supplied copies of documents regarding the car loans, but they have advised us they cannot supply the original documents as they are not in possession of them,” the detective said.

“Having access to the original documents would allow us to conduct handwriting analysis.”