A brazen fraudster conned innocent victims out of more than $10m while splurging the money on a lavish lifestyle that included race cars, helicopters and boats.
Terence Nugara, 50, used his knowledge of legitimate property businesses to persuade retirees and mum-and-dad investors to pour their money into a series of luxury developments scattered across Melbourne, along with one in Bali, over five years.
Nugara, also known as “Rio”, lured victims in with promises of 98.93 per cent returns within two years if they invested in him and his Skynet Financial Services business.
Between 2014 and 2019, Nugara conned 38 people into giving him $10,152,061.93 of their hard-earnt cash before pocketing the money himself rather than investing it.
“You are a selfish, greedy little man,” one victim told Nugara in the County Court of Victoria on Tuesday.
Nugara, from Brighton, in Melbourne’s southeast, pleaded guilty to 37 counts of obtaining a financial advantage by deception and two counts of theft.
Dressed in a grey prison tracksuit in the dock of a packed courtroom, Nugara pouted nonchalantly as the court was told about the damage of his fraud on his victims.
One elderly couple spoke of the “devastating” impact the ordeal had on their lives.
They said having 40 years’ worth of superannuation stolen from them had put an “unimaginable stress on our marriage of 45 years”.
Another investor told the court they had to sell their property and move into a rental, as they were no longer able to afford their mortgage after trusting Nugara with their money.
“Mr Nugara obviously had little regard for me or my family, he knew we were not wealthy,” another victim told the court.
“I take some solace in the fact that he will face justice for what he has done to myself and others.”
Nugara’s main scam was to convince investors he was linked to a legitimate business that was developing six sites across Melbourne, the court was told.
He told his victims to transfer money to him or to give him control of their self-managed superannuation funds so he could invest money on their behalf.
In most cases, the money never made its way to the property developer and was instead used to fund Nugara’s high-flying lifestyle.
When concerned clients approached the legitimate company to ask where their money was, they were told they had never been investors in the developments.
When Nugara did invest money on behalf of a client, he kept the returns for himself.
The court was told Nugara also created two fictitious developments in Sandringham and Bali.
He went as far as to invite investors into his office for a sham presentation where they were shown development “plans” for the Sandringham property that were completely made up, the court was told.
In some cases, Nugara transferred money from victims’ bank accounts directly into his own after they had given him access for investment purposes.
With questions piling up about where his victims’ money had gone, Nugara fled Australia in August 2019.
He spent three years on the run in exotic locations like Bali, Sri Lanka and Costa Rica before being arrested when returning to Melbourne airport in October last year.
Nugara had previously been a legitimate financial adviser but had his licence suspended in 2015 before it was terminated in 2016, the court was told.
His defence lawyer told the court that Nugara would never work in finance again.
“He might without a licence,” Judge Trevor Wraight quipped in response.
Many of his victims are yet to receive a cent of their money back.
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“We are not the same happy-go-lucky people we were before 2018,” a heartbroken grandmother told the court.
“All we ever wanted was a quiet, contented life where our family would be happy. Nugara has taken that away from us.”
Nugara is due to be sentenced on October 5.
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