“You can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors. You know, eventually those snakes are going to turn on you.”
Hillary Rodham Clinton
FROM MANGO HILL TO SUNNYBANK HILLS -TO TAX AVOIDANCE AND KAI SHENG.
WAS EDMUND GALEA- AN ENABLER OR THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE
On the morning of 18 January 2019 when Edmund Albert Galea, self-proclaimed financier and ‘litigation funder’, in the Mango Hill Litigation arrived at the residence of solicitor Quintin Rozario, Galea appeared nervous, very nervous and contrite in some respects.
Galea’s conversation with Rozario was recorded on the mornings of 18 and19 January 2019 although Galea was unaware that his conversation was being recorded.
Galea was nervous and suspicious, as he was still under investigation by the Queensland Police Service, suspected of being part of a massive, sophisticated, land & Identity fraud criminal gang operating in Queensland at the time. Galea was suspected of being an integral part of the syndicate operating the scam.
Fortunately for Galea, Covid and another event intervened to slow down the investigation into what became known as the Kai Sheng mortgage scam. The lead investigator in the Kai Sheng matter at the time, detective sergeant Darren Ward of the Mt. Gravatt police station in Brisbane, had quit his post in or around 2020.
However, as such matters never go away, the Police have resumed their investigation into the Kai Sheng scam with the emergence of fresh and recent evidence into the scam.
DECEPTION, FRAUD, LIES AND SUBTERFUGE
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave when we practice how to deceive.”
Galea’s meeting with Rozario was to clarify certain transactions relating to the mangled distribution of the award money from the Mango Hill arbitration. Over $12,000,000.00 of it.
The award money (the $12,000,000.00) had been deposited in the Emperor Investment Group’s (Emperor) account at the Westpac bank in Southport Queensland. Galea is director and shareholder of Emperor.
Galea knew that Rozario was about to grill him on who it was who ordered the distribution of the Mango Hill arbitration award. Most of the money from the Mango Hill Litigation and another matter, Neovest vs the Brisbane City Council (Neovest vs BCC), left a trail flowing back to Mio Art, Silvana Perovich, Richard Spencer and Francis Douglas QC.
Neovest vs the Brisbane City Council was a successful claim run in conjunction with Jonathan McLeod & Partners, liquidator of the Neo Lido group.
The respondent in that matter was the BCC, against whom McLeod sought to recover and successfully clawed back several millions of dollars in underpayments by the BCC to Neovest over the resumption of a block of land in Southbank Brisbane. Neovest, was a Spencer and Perovich entity.
Galea admitted to allowing his companies and his accounts to be used by Perovich and Spencer for what he believed was ‘a proper and legitimate purpose in pursuit of monies‘ belonging to Rozario’s clients Perovich, Spencer and Mio Art. So much is clear from documented correspondence and Galea’s affidavits in the Mango Hill Litigation.
He claimed he thought Rozario was aware of these transactions, apologised and delivered to Rozario a few copies of bank statements evidencing some of the multi million-dollar transactions from the Mango Hill Litigation, Neovest vs the BCC, the Mango Hill arbitration over the years. Perovich and Spencer were bankrupts.
Galea admitted in his conversations with Rozario that the Mango Hill arbitration award monies (a large part of it) had been paid into Emperor’s and Mio Art’s bank accounts on Silvana Perovich and Richard Spencer’s instructions. That admission was his act of contrition. But it did not go far enough.
Over the past 4 years, investigators are known to have recovered several years of banking records out of the Delta Law, Emperor, Spencer Bloss and Mio Art accounts including accounts connected to Spencer’s children, Michael Spencer a solicitor, ‘Katie’ a school teacher, and to a number of other people connected to Spencer and Perovich.
There is further evidence unearthed by investigators which consists of more detailed financial records, significantly more than Westpac or Galea were prepared to yield.
All Galea supplied Rozario was 12 pages of banking statements for late November 2018 and early January 2019.
LEAVE SUZANNE OUT OF IT
Importantly Galea’s promise to Rozario to supply ledgers and bank statements relating to the many Mio Art related matters was made conditional upon his wife Suzanne Galea’s name being left out of any investigation. In Galea’s own words “she could be implicated in many things she had nothing to do with”.
More recent information has surfaced to implicate Galea and his associates in money laundering, withholding of evidence, misleading the courts, the ATO and former trustees in bankruptcy of Perovich and Spencer, – Terry Vander Velde and the late Paul Sweeney of SV Partners.
A VORTEX OF REGULATORY AVOIDANCE CRIME THREATS AND DISHONESTY
Edmund Galea had good reason to want to exclude his wife Suzanne’s name from the morass and for his compliance failures and breaches of the law.
Suzanne Galea, a schoolteacher whose name was on the ASIC register of several companies was Galea’s shield and cover whilst he operated as a financial services provider during the period of an ASIC ban imposed on him. Regardless Galea continued to act in the shadow of his wife’s license without being properly accredited.
On 19 January of 2019 Galea met with Silvana Perovich and Richard Spencer to discuss Rozario’s demands for the bank statements and ledgers relating to the 2 Emperor Westpac accounts. The 2 warned him to cease any contact with Rozario.
In the meantime Perovich severed Rozario’s access to the Delta Law server (which she had registered in the name of one of her nominees) and removed from the Delta Law server, vital, incriminating documents evidencing hers, Mio Art’s Richard Spencer’s and Francis Douglas’s illegal conduct over the years in the Mango Hill Litigation.
A HISTORY OF GHOST CREDITORS AND WEALTHY PAUPERS
Most of the money that passed through Emperor’s two accounts at the Westpac bank in Southport were purportedly used to ‘pay off debts’ owed by Perovich, Spencer and Mio Art, to ghost ‘creditors‘ and to barristers fees (mainly to Francis Douglas).
Rozario had in fact been funding the Mango litigation by deferring his fees under an agreement with Mio Art, on behalf of Perovich and Spencer who were bankrupts at the time.
Since 2009 Rozario has maintained transaction records to show the amounts of money paid out in each of these matters to Spencer’s, Mio Art’s and Galea’s (Emperor’s) Westpac accounts. Galea did not deny it. He froze when confronted with the evidence.
The undisclosed trustee role Galea played for Perovich, notably included, diverting what was essentially Delta Law’s money in late 2014, towards the purchase of a property at 83 Cole Street Alderley Queensland for Perovich and appearing on title as purchaser and owner of that property on behalf of the bankrupt Silvana Perovich.
LYING UNDER OATH LIKE MARTYRDOM-THE LAST REFUGE OF A SCOUNDREL
Fearing exposure, Galea now offered to assist Rozario to secure a more equitable sum from out of the Mango Hill arbitration award. He offered to mediate between Rozario, Richard and Silvana.
However, under cross examination in the matter BS8866 & BS 8867-2019 Galea brazenly lied under oath. He denied any knowledge of the conversation between himself and Rozario when asked about it in court. His response to the court was that the allegation was “pure fabrication”.
In his recorded conversation with Rozario, Edmund Galea was explicit as to his knowledge and what he had done on behalf of Silvana Perovich, Richard Spencer, barrister Francis Douglas and Mio Art.
He admitted to knowing of its consequences to him and more particularly to his wife Suzanne, which is why he wanted her name and involvement in these matters purged and expunged from the record.
The judge in BS8866 & BS8867, Katherine Holmes, did not ask Rozario’s lawyer at the hearing if Rozario wished to rebut the allegation by Galea that the statement in his affidavit was as Galea claimed was “a fabrication”. Neither did Rozario’s lawyer broach that issue later at the trial. Rozario was told later that evidence in the form of a recorded conversation may not be viewed favorably by the judge even as rebuttal evidence.
GALEA’S HANDLERS TO THE RESCUE-TAX AVOIDANCE–MISLEADING THE COURT AND THE ATO
“The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison wall”.
Dennis Healey
Out of confusion, fear and misguided loyalties, Galea met with Richard Spencer and Silvana Perovich and told them about his discussions with Rozario later in the day on 19 January 2019.
The two comforted Galea with assurances that Francis Douglas QC (as he was at the time) and David Keane the son of a High Court judge were prepared to stand behind Galea in the event Rozario decided to force the issue out in the open over the redirected award monies and his unpaid outstanding fees.
The re characterization of these payments as ‘debts ‘and ‘loans’ (to Galea, Otto, Keane, Dianna, Bernard, Michael Spencer, Katie (the latter 2 being Richard Spencer’s children)and Francis Douglas)) was clearly designed to mislead the ATO and Delta Law.
Galea identified some payments in the Emperor ledger and in Silvana Perovich’s list of payees to Rozario including those in his and Otto’s names, and confirmed these payments to be part of a ruse designed to mislead the ATO, not Delta Law or Rozario. Those payments totaled more than $2,000,000.00.
This, according to Galea, was designed to benefit Francis Douglas who would receive the money and pass it on as a ‘loan’ from Galea to Douglas, in order that Douglas may then offset that ‘loan’ as a tax deduction/ benefit against Douglas’s income tax liabilities with the ATO.
The remainder was for the benefit of Silvana Perovich who otherwise was not entitled to anything from the wash up from the arbitration and the mediation that followed. James Conomos and his client Robert Whitton were the beneficiaries after Delta Law (under its lien), then Mio Art but not Silvana Perovich.
Silvana’s email to Rozario around that time further confirmed and corroborated Galea’s admissions about acting in the interests of protecting Francis Douglas against the ATO’s investigations into Douglas’s unpaid taxes. (a set of emails between Douglas, the ATO and and his solicitor Waterhouse lawyers, strayed and ended up with Perovich who then passed it onto Delta Law to vouch for the trouble Douglas was in with the ATO).
The ATO investigation into Francis Douglas’s tax affairs remains extant.
Fleetstreet.blog (now”watchdoglaw.org”) has learned that the ATO had recently in 2023 directed a request to Rozario to provide a list of dates, payments identifying the purpose for each payment made for the benefit of Francis Douglas either directly or to third parties at Douglas’s request or direction for his benefit. The request is for details of transactions and payments dating back to 2010. Rozario could not be contacted for comment.
Galea’s testimony in BS8866 & BS8867-2019 corroborated his admissions made to Rozario 11 months prior to the hearing that payments to Douglas, to Perovich and to Spencer were no (but disguised as) ‘loans’.
THE KAI SHENG FRAUD-LOW DOC LOANS-A HOUSE BUILT ON FORGERY SMOKE AND MIRRORS
Edmund Galea is director and CEO of the company Emperor an Australian private company. He is also shareholder and director of a couple of other regulated and registered companies. One of these is a mortgage broker, SJM Solutions. The other is the company ALF (Award Litigation Funding), a company that purports to be a litigation funder in Galea’s home state of Queensland Australia.
An advise obtained from Sydney barrister Nicholas Mirzai in 2017 points to ALF being the creation of Richard Spencer, the sentient mind behind the myth of Litigation Funder ALF and Edmund Galea. Galea was a mere stand in and a willing one at that.
In a written letter, Silvana Perovich denied that ALF and Galea ever provided any funding for the Mango Hill Litigation. A sworn affidavit of Galea’s also in the Mango Hill matter contradicts the substance of Perovich’s letter.
GALEA AS LENDER OF LAST RESORT
Galea had for years had engaged in providing Low Doc loans. These were mainly loans to low income, low savings borrowers. Low Doc loans require few of the requisite documentation that could demonstrate a borrower’s capacity to pay the required minimum deposit towards a property purchase.
Evidence of tax returns and earnings to satisfy a lenders criteria for providing mortgage finance is often ‘arranged’ by the broker, in this case Galea. Galea specialized in providing such documentation, referring borrowers to lenders, to supply the desperate end of the market with mortgage finance.
Galea was no litigation funder, nor did he lend vast sums of money to Francis Maxwell Douglas KC at any time as he had sworn under oath he had in the BS8866 & BS 8867 in 2019 in the Supreme Court of Queensland.
Edmund Galea was squarely in the crosshairs of the Queensland Police Service and was being investigated by the Service in 2016. Also targeted for investigation was his finance company SJM Financial and ZAP Home Loans, over a massive property scam involving the sale of land belonging to one Kai Sheng using a ‘ring in’ seller.
THE KAI SHENG LAND SCAM-THE MYSTERIOUS PETER BLYTON– THE PAUPER AS A BUYER
The Kai Sheng land scam in short was identity fraud using a ‘ring in’ Asian to substitute for the legal and registered owner of a property in Sunnybank Hills whilst the owner was away in China.
Galea was introduced to Peter Blyton, an unemployed and seriously unemployable individual without the resources or credit history to buy a multi million-dollar property at the time. Peter Blyton was the prospective borrower purchaser of the property in question.
Galea ought to have known during his due diligence of Blyton that Blyton was an unsuitable and unqualified borrower for the large amount of money Blyton had applied to borrow through Galea. Or perhaps it was Galea’s wife Suzanne who was required to carry out the due diligence on Blyton but failed to do so. Her spouse Edmund Galea was at the time operating in the shadow of her license.
Peter Blyton was introduced to Galea by two Asian accountants- associates of Galea- operating out of the Gold Coast. They are believed to have also supplied the financials, the false tax returns, bank statements, record of savings and more importantly they vouched for the ‘deposit’ paid to the ‘vendor’ (the ring in).
False documentation, tax returns and proof of income are an essential element in such offences and necessarily a part of the ‘toolbox’ of shadow operators like Edmund Galea and his associates exploiting the Low Doc mortgage market.
The accountants and Galea had been working with a real estate agent, a ‘scout’ also an Asian individual at LJ Hooker Sunnybank Hills.
Galea was by no means a random pick out of the Yellow Pages for the job. According to Queensland Police investigators, Edmund Galea’s name had been on their radar previously in Identity Fraud cases involving not just Low Doc Mortgages, though no charges at the time (2017) had been laid against him.
SILENCE IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY- AN ASIAN TRADEMARK
Part of the reason no charges had been laid against Galea and his associates was because the real owner of the property, an Asian, refused to lay charges.
Asians are generally very secretive avoiding at all costs testifying against their own kind even where they are the victim and all for good reason. It is cultural and driven by fear of extreme extra judicial consequences.
Many Chinese property investors in Australia who pay large sums of money for their purchases, often find themselves in the cross hairs of the law. They purchase properties often without FIRB approval, with ‘hot money’ -flight capital- from China and operate largely in a black market. They are known to be monitored by Chinese law enforcement agents operating illegally within Australia.
KAI SHENG BACK ON THE FRONT BURNER–A COLD CASE HEATS UP
Without saying so in as many words, a police source has confirmed that the Kai Sheng matter is back on the list of unfinished investigations with the Queensland Police Service. The unnamed police source has revealed that the matter may have been referred to the major crime section of the Australian Federal Police in what is to be a joint operation.
The source said, the Queensland and Federal Police Services are aware that the Kai Sheng matter- although a small part of a much wider problem of money laundering, financial and property fraud, identity theft and human trafficking- is being aggressively pursued by law enforcement with no effort being spared.
“The joint task force will strike without warning. There will be no media coverage, warnings or press conferences on this one” he ended.
