FAILED Geelong soft drink company Noddy’s received $1.65 million in stolen funds, Victorian Supreme Court has heard.
Former Melbourne lawyer Alan John Munt was reported to have pleaded guilty to 26 offences as part of a $4.8 million fraud.
Munt, 61, used the funds as part of a Ponzi scheme to prop up two businesses – Noddy’s and his own Emerald-based legal practice.
Munt was charged with theft and obtaining property by deception between 1998 and 2009 when he took funds from clients under the pretence of a legitimate investment scheme.
Apart from the $1.65 million he poured into Noddy’s Soft Drinks, Munt was accused of spending another $1.1 million to maintain the Ponzi scheme.
He was also accused of diverting inheritance money pledged to charities to bank accounts in his name.
The court heard Munt turned himself in to the Law Institute of Victoria in 2009, with Victoria Police and Legal Services Board involved in the investigation before he was finally charged in 2014.
The court heard Munt was motivated by greed and maintaining an outward appearance of success.
He will be sentenced at a later date.
A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation in which returns are paid to investors from new capital paid to the operator by new investors rather than from profit earned.
Former Geelong business Chartwell Enterprises operated one of Australia’s worst Ponzi schemes. Chartwell collapsed in 2008 with debts of $50 million.
Chartwell fraudster Graeme Hoy was sentenced to 13 years and nine months in prison after pleading guilty to 44 charges of obtaining property and a financial advantage by deception.
His business partner, Ian Rau, was sentenced to 20 months jail for his role in the scandal.
