Barry Kloogh. Photo / Supplied
Officials trying to recover the meagre funds left over from the millions disgraced Dunedin financial adviser Barry Kloogh stole from his clients are hoping to avoid court action to obtain his only known sizeable asset.
In 2020, Kloogh was imprisoned for eight years and 10 months on multiple fraud and theft charges, after the Ponzi scheme he had been running for years finally toppled over.
The discovery of the thefts devastated dozens of Otago and Southland families who had invested their life savings through Kloogh, several for many years, confident that as they were dealing with a registered financial adviser, their money would be secure.
Instead, Kloogh had been systematically stealing from his clients for years, leaving an enormous financial tangle that the Official Assignee is still struggling to unravel.
In 2019, in his only media interview, Kloogh told the Otago Daily Times that the sole property he had owned, in Earnscleugh, had been sold, and the proceeds were being handled by lawyers.
That sale was finalised just before the Serious Fraud Office searched Kloogh’s office and the funds — $455,442 — were secured and frozen before they could be spirited off elsewhere.
The liquidator’s latest six-monthly report, released to the Otago Daily Times yesterday, said that the final destiny of that money and accumulated interest remained unresolved.
“Documents have been filed in court as the liquidator’s…
