Jail time for Melbourne-based mortgage broker
A Melbourne-based mortgage broker has been sentenced to almost five years in jail and ordered to pay $1.2 million in compensation to investors for operating a Ponzi scheme, following an investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
Hazel Bucello, the sole director of the Victorian Finance Broking Service (VFBS) in Kew, was sentenced yesterday in the County Court of Victoria to four years and nine months jail.
She pleaded guilty to five counts of obtaining property worth more than $2.3 million by deception and one count of obtaining a financial advantage by deception worth more than $140,000.
ASIC alleged that Bucello obtained more than $2.5 million from five investors by falsely representing that the money would be on-lent to clients of VFBS and used for bridging finance.
ASIC’s investigation found that investors were being repaid their own money and that the scheme was reliant on new funds being invested to meet the promised interest payments of 4 and 5 per cent per month.
While some of the investors received interest payments, ASIC found that the capital invested was not repaid. Instead, Bucello used the remaining money to meet the financial obligations of VFBS (which later collapsed in 2006) and for her own purposes.
She will serve a minimum of two and a half years in prison before being considered for parole.
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