Investors who lost their savings in the Trio Capital fraud have called for the release of documents, which they hope will expose the associates of the criminal mastermind Jack Flader.

Flader was the architect of Australia’s largest superannuation fraud in which $176 million was siphoned out of Trio into the Cayman Islands.

In the wake of admissions from corporate regulators last week that they had given up the hunt for Jack Flader – who operates out of Bangkok and Hong Kong – an action group, “The Victims of Financial Fraud”, has vowed to pursue documents, which it believes may help to recover victims’ losses.

“The Victims of Financial Fraud” (VOFF) condemns the failure of ASIC to pursue the kingpin of the Trio Capital fraud, Jack Flader and bring him to justice,” said a statement from the group.

“ASIC has previously claimed that Flader was the ‘ultimate controller’ of the offshore funds in Trio Capital. This claim is despite Jack Flader coming to the attention of the ATO, APRA and ASIC more than a decade ago, yet all failed to prevent him being able to set up managed investment schemes in Australia.”

VOFF called on the regulators to release all documents relating to “Global Consultants and Services Ltd” (GCSL), the Hong Kong-based custodian of the Trio funds. Flader was GCSL chief executive but its other officers remain a secret.

In 2010, lawyers for Flader sought to block the release of nearly 6,000 GCSL documents in the NSW Supreme Court. The court, however, ordered the documents be released to the Trio liquidator PPB on the basis of a confidentiality agreement with ASIC.

ASIC argued that the documents should remain confidential to itself and PPB due to a memorandum of understanding the agency had with regulators in Hong Kong.

“It (ASIC) has in its possession…in all likelihood…information on how this fraud was executed,” said VOFF in its release over the weekend. “Trio Capital investors have been denied access to these documents”.
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