Bankruptcy looming for legal high founder

The man known as the godfather of New Zealand’s legal high industry is facing bankruptcy.

It is understood that the Inland Revenue Department has filed legal proceedings against Matt Bowden, just months after he moved to Thailand.

Bowden said Inland Revenue made it ‘‘impossible to settle’’, so he would be accepting the bankruptcy.

The proceedings follow years of uncertainty with his company Stargate Operations, which continues to go through the liquidation process. The company still owes more than $3 million.

Bowden put his company into voluntary liquidation in May 2015, after the Government passed legislation heavily restricting the sale of synthetic cannabis.

At the time, he said his business was struggling and he could not afford to pay the bills. He was also locked out of the lab where he made his products.

Yesterday, Bowden said: ‘‘I spent nearly 20 years working between government, industry and community, developing a regulatory system for future alternatives to currently consumed psychoactive drugs. While attracting us commendations at a UN [United Nations] level, the new psychoactives industry also threatened entrenched big businesses both in New Zealand and abroad.’’

However, he did not attribute all the blame to others. ‘‘I obviously made a lot of management mistakes myself as well, which I accept,’’ he said.

In June, Bowden – who used to perform music under his rock alter ego, Starboy – left the country to live in Thailand. He claimed he was forced to move his family overseas after their house ‘‘was taken from us and sold’’.

In the latest liquidator’s report, Derek Ah Sam said the sale of company assets, including laboratory equipment, assets of the music studio and the costume and prop hire branch of the business, helped repay about $229,500 of the total debt.