The New Zealand notorious David John Hobbs, who was accused of defrauding more than a Milion dollar invested by the Tongan Tokaikolo Church in his $30 million Ponzi scheme, has been ordered by a New South Wales Court last Thursday to pay $500,000, and received a permanent disqualification from managing any financial services and corporations.
The ruling has brought an end to a longstanding dispute among the Tokaikolo Church members after reformist Rev Faka’osi Hau braved breaching the taboo and challenged the highly respected President Rev Dr Liufau Saulala through their Fakavahekolo last year 2012 for his investing the church money in Mr Hobbs’s Ponzi Scheme.
Dr Saulala maintained that David Hobbs was honest and that the church’s investment which was said to be at its stage of maturity at the time, supposed to be withdrawn in December 2012 but it never happened.
According to the court’s 143 pages decision, the Tokaikolo Church was not identified as a victim of Hobbs scheme but it heard of a letter filed by Dr Liufau Saulala and a person by the name Limoni Oto Naulu to support Mr Hobbs submission to his penalty.
The Judge referred to Mr Oto Naulu as ‘Otto’ and alleged that he must have been familiar with Hobbs offshore investments. Otto was known to the Tokaikolo Church members as the person who first introduced Hobbs with his Investment Scheme to the Tokaikolo and he is related to Mr Hobbs in his wife.
The court ordered that Hobbs investment scheme must be wound up and the two liquidators Mr Barry Taylor and Mr Andrew Fletcher Needham must call a “meeting of investors in the Liquidation Funds within 16 weeks of the date on which these orders are made”.
The $500,000 penalty imposed on Mr Hobbs was said to be the largest ever made in any ASIC proceeding. David Hobbs’s wife
Jacqueline Hobbs was temporarily disqualified for 8 years for doing financial services and 6 years before allowing to manage any corperations.
David Hobbs was the mastermind of an unregistered funds along with 13 other colleagues that teamed up with him duping Australian investors and self-managed superannuation funds that amounted to $55 Millions in not only New Zealand but people in the United States, Hong Kong, Vanuatu, the Bahamas, Anguilla, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Rev Faka’osi Hau is taking legal action against President Saulala for his failed investment of the Church’s money plus further corruption allegation.
