Financial adviser Barry Kloogh pleads guilty
Financial adviser Barry Kloogh has pleaded guilty.
Thursday, March 12th 2020, 11:43AM
Kloogh, who ran Breathe Financial Planning and Impact Enterprises, had his offices raided by the Serious Fraud Office in May, after a tipoff by the Financial Markets Authority.
In court on Thursday, Kloogh admitted 11 representative charges, including obtaining by deception, forgery, theft by a person in a special relationship and issuing false statements.
He defrauded investors of more than $15 million.
He was convicted and remanded in custody.
Financial Advice New Zealand cancelled Kloogh's membership and the Financial Markets Authority cancelled his authorisation.
His companies were placed into liquidation in the High Court at Dunedin on August 29.
It was said at that point that they owed more than $12.5 million.
Liquidators said it seemed that the companies had been operating as a Ponzi scheme, using the money from some investors to provide returns to others.
Kloogh will be sentenced in May.
"For each investor, an investment that appears in the records in their name, may actually be purchased with another investor's funds or a mixture of investors' funds. The scale of co-mingling and funds misapplied is not known at this stage and will be the subject of investigation. This will involve the liquidator having to assess hundreds, potentially thousands of transactions to verify claims by investors to assets currently held with the custodian on trust," liquidators said in their report.
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