Nowra at centre of $60bn fraud case

After attempting to sell a mistake-riddled certificate allegedly issued by the Union Bank of Switzerland for 4590 tonnes of platinum, valued at the time at about $66 billion, through a merchant bank, Nowra man Anthony Hamod was arrested in January, 1995.

While Hamod was charged with fraud, and spent seven months in jail before being released on bail, all charges were withdrawn or dismissed, leading to him taking action against the police and UBS for false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, injurious falsehood and conspiracy to injure.

When the court rejected his claims, Hamod appealed to the Supreme Court’s Court of Appeal, but it recently rejected the appeal and awarded costs against him.

During legal battles Hamod claimed the litany of spelling mistakes in the certificate were a sign of its authenticity, as anyone finding the certificate would automatically believe it to be a fraud.

He told the court UBS “must have known that the platinum certificate was authentic and valid because it looked so defective”.

However Court of Appeal Justices Beazley, Giles and Whealy dismissed the claim as “an apparently unusual, if not ridiculous submission, given the comprehensive evidence given by UBS’ witnesses that the platinum certificate contained an extraordinary number of errors.”

Hamod constantly argued the certificate was real, and his explanation of how he came to be selling it led to one judge saying it read like a spy thriller, with claims of involvement by Mossad, the Chinese secret police, the Indonesian military, the CIA and an Indonesian sultan who had fled to Switzerland, while there were also claims of kidnappings and blackmail attempts.

However other experts likened the certificate to “Monopoly money”, as its value was greater than the UBS reserves.

One expert, Mr Schicker, told the court the certificate was “a fantasy”, as account numbers on it did not exist, names on it were not associated with UBS, and he pointed to “the absurdity of it” as the bank did not have the capacity to store 4590 tonnes of platinum, considering Switzerland’s entire stock of gold at the time was 1200 tonnes.

The Justices said other witnesses provided “irrefutable” evidence the certificate was a fake.

Attempts to sell the certificate at the discounted rate of about $41 billion resulted in Hamod contacting merchant banker Nick Wall from Utilis Pty Ltd, who was presented with documentation during an initial meeting in Nowra.

Mr Wall later said he was “shown a lot of rubbish” trying to verify the authenticity of the certificate, which Hamod said was owned by an organisation attached to the Indonesian military.

Later, Hamod’s Nowra accountant Phillip Balding asked for an up-front fee of about $550 million to ensure the certificate could be released so a potential buyer could

examine it and verify its authenticity, but during negotiations the amount was reduced to $250 million.

Requests for an up-front payment were at the centre of criminal charges for attempts to obtain financial advantage by deception.

However when Hamod was accompanied by Mr Balding and Nowra solicitor Gary Lees during a meeting in Sydney with Mr Wall and an undercover police officer posing as a potential buyer, Mr Hamod insisted no money change hands until after the certificate had been authenticated.

Full payments were to be made after the certificate was authenticated, with Mr Balding setting up for Hamod an account in the Advance Bank’s Nowra branch for the payment of his 10 per cent commission.

From that account he was to pay $20 million to Mr Balding, $20 million to Jason Lymbery, $1 million to Mr Lees, and $10 million to Emily Scott, whom Hamod said he owed $20,000.

Mr Balding, who now works for Nowra accountancy firm Street Quinn, said when he set up the account he thought it was for Mr Hamod’s dried fruit business.