Athan Papoulias of Brighton Le Sands, NSW, has pleaded guilty in the Downing Centre Local Court to one charge of carrying on a financial services business, reckless about the fact that it did not have the required licence and one charge of dealing in the proceeds of crime worth $100,000 or more, reckless to it being the proceeds of crime.
Mr Papoulias has pleaded guilty to carrying on an unlicensed financial services business between about 2 November 2016 and 21 April 2017.
Mr Papoulias has also pleaded guilty to dealing in proceeds of crime in that period, in the form of commissions for promoting investments in Courtenay House, while being reckless about the fact that the commissions were proceeds of crime derived from the carrying on of an unlicensed financial services business. Mr Papoulias received approximately $670,860 in commissions by attracting investors to Courtenay House.
On 8 November 2022, Tony Iervasi pleaded guilty to five criminal charges regarding offences committed when he was the director of Courtenay House, which raised around $180 million from around 585 investors (22-307MR).
ASIC alleges that the Courtenay House companies represented to investors that their funds would be traded in the Forex and Futures markets when only a small proportion of funds were traded. Instead, monthly amounts were paid to investors representing that they were from trading. This is referred to as a Ponzi scheme.
It is not alleged that Mr Papoulias was aware that only a small…
