Luxury to watchhouse
Tax fraud accused has another night behind bars
THE construction figure accused of being the ringleader of an alleged $17.5m tax fraud syndicate busted on the Gold Coast will spend another night behind bars after a $200,000 surety bid was denied.
It is alleged George Alex headed a syndicate which used labour hire companies to divert PAYG tax payments away from the Australian Taxation Office and used some of it to fund luxury lifestyles including on the Gold Coast.
The 49-year-old was arrested after an early morning raid at his waterfront Surfers Paradise home on Tuesday.
Six other men were also arrested on the Gold Coast and 12 across the nation – including jailed Sydney drug and tobacco import baron Michael Ibrahim’s wife Caitlin Hall. The arrests followed an 18-month joint operation by Australian Federal Police, the ATO and ASIC.
In an action-packed afternoon on Wednesday it was revealed:
• The Southport Magistrates Court was told Alex had the flu meaning he could not appear in the court. He later tested negative for the coronavirus.
• Alex’s lawyer Chris Nyst said the Sydney building industry figure would vigorously defend the charges of conspiracy to defraud and dealing with the proceeds of crime.
• The court was told Alex had been linked to convicted terrorists Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elomar but had told a Royal Commission all he knew about those and there was nothing behind the links.
• Magistrate Gary Finger said there was no way to “alleviate the significant concerns” Alex would reoffend or flee the jurisdiction.
• Five of Alex’s co-accused – his son Arthur Alex, Adrian
Metly, Mark Bryers, Gordon McAndrew and Kevin McHugh – were granted bail with strict conditions. Those conditions included they not contact any of their co-accused, they own one mobile phone and they each post a substantial surety.
• The Commonwealth prosecutor consented to the bail for all men except for George Alex.
• But the men spent last night in the Southport Watchhouse after there were difficulties lodging their surety with the court.
• McHugh’s barrister Rodney Clifford told the court his client was the “dumb bunny” who was “used” and had been “uninformed by the others”.
• A number of assets were seized including 12 real properties, 17 motor vehicles, 65 bank accounts, a caravan and a boat with a total value of approximately $21m.
Defence lawyer Chris Nyst, of Nyst Legal, appeared for George Alex, Arthur Alex, Bryers, Metly and McAndrew.
Mr Nyst said George Alex appeared in a few of the phone calls allegedly intercepted by the Australian Federal Police.
“There is no smoking gun,” he said.
“In all of those hundreds of calls or conversations, very few, perhaps fewer than 10, are said to involve the defendant at all.”
Mr Nyst said George Alex was neither a director nor a shareholder of the two labour hire companies alleged to be involved in the scheme.
He told the court the matter was “destined to be a complex, probably lengthy and controversial prosecution”.
George Alex will be taken to Sydney in police custody where he is to appear in Central Local Court on Friday.
The other men were to make their own way to Sydney for a court appearance on the same day.