Developer charged with alleged Gold Coast ponzi scam

A Gold Coast developer, who also runs a strip club in Hobart, has been arrested in connection with an alleged Ponzi scam.

Bradley Keith Silver of Hobart has been charged with fraud offences totalling $2.32 million following an investigation by market watchdog, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission.

Silver was arrested by the Australian Federal Police on July 20 and brought before the Brisbane Magistrates Court the same day. 

The ASIC has charged Silver with seven counts of fraud under s408C of the Queensland Criminal Code, which carry a maximum prison term of 12 years and six counts of dishonest use of his position as a director under s184 of the Corporations Act (maximum sentence of imprisonment of five years).

Silver was released on conditional bail to appear in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on 25 August, the ASIC said in a media release. His bail conditions include that he surrender his passport. 

The matter is being prosecuted by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.

Between 2008 and 2010, Silver was the director of a Gold Coast property development company known as Capital Growth International Club Pty Ltd (CGIC) and associated with a company known as All About Property Developments Pty Ltd (AAPD). 

In February 2011, the companies were placed into liquidation owing investors about $9 million, the ASIC said.

The company, where unconventional “low-doc” loans were allegedly offered to clients as old as 98, was the subject of a Senate economics committee’s inquiry into bank practices in 2012 involving Westpac’s former Pacific Fair home lending manager David St Pierre.

The customers were promised "safe" returns of up to 20 per cent a year to invest in CGIC.

Silver also operates Hobart’s Men’s Galley and Launceston’s Show Girls, according to The Mercury.