Ex-director of SMSF advice firm charged with dishonesty
A former director of an AFSL has been charged with dishonesty offences after allegedly misappropriating over $1.8 million of client funds from investments including SMSFs.
Graeme Miller, former director of CFS Private Wealth Pty Ltd and CFS Corporation Pty Ltd, appeared through his lawyer in Lismore Local Court charged with 12 counts of engaging in dishonest conduct in the course of carrying on a financial services business.
In its case against Mr Miller, ASIC alleges he advised his financial planning clients to invest with his firm but did not actually invest the funds contributed, instead using them to pay business expenses and dividends to other clients.
The charges relate to $1.865 million worth of funds appropriated from seven different clients, some of which were through their SMSFs.
Mr Miller was banned from the financial services industry for 25 years, and from managing corporations for three years, by the Federal Court earlier this year.
The court ordered the winding up of Mr Miller’s two businesses, which had been in operation since 2008. The alleged offences being heard in the local court were committed between 2013 and 2017.
In the earlier Federal Court case, Mr Miller was found to have appropriated over $4.7 million from his clients, many of whom were SMSF trustees, for personal use.
Justice Reeves had described Mr Miller as having “misuse[d] clients’ superannuation savings for personal purposes over a number of years, in a long series of transactions which displayed what I consider to be a serious degree of personal dishonesty”.
The local court case is being prosecuted by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions following referral from ASIC. It has been adjourned for further mention at the Downing Centre Local Court in Sydney in December.
