A man has pleaded guilty to $115 million fraud – the single largest fraud in New Zealand history.
The former manager of Ross Asset Management David Robert Gilmour Ross, 63, has pleaded guilty to five Serious Fraud Office charges.
They were false accounting and fraud and three from the Financial Markets Authority of providing a financial service when he was not registered to do so, made false or misleading statements to get authorisation as a financial adviser and supplying information to the authority that he knew to be false or misleading.
He has been remanded in custody until October for a date to be set for sentencing.
Ross lured new investors to his Ross Asset Management fund with promises of returns of up to 30 per cent.
His lawyer Gary Turkington did not apply for bail before Wellington District Court judge Geoff Ellis.
SFO prosecutor Kristy McDonald asked the judge to order a reparation report.
The SFO charges alleged Ross ran a Ponzi scheme, which he disguised by falsely reporting clients’ investments.
Large portions of client portfolios were shown as invested through a non-existent broker ‘Bevis Marks’, resulting in a $380 million overstatement of investment positions.
More than 1200 RAM (Ross Asset Management) client accounts had been affected by the scheme.
For full story go to
Dominion Post 29 August 2013.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/9101568/Guilty-plea-to-countrys-largest-fraud
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