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Mudasir Mohammed Naseeruddin took advantage of vulnerable investors over five years through a “chaotic” and “ruinous” scheme for his own benefit.
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Fraudster behind ‘ruinous’ $521k SMSF swindle gets 4 years’ jail
22 December 2023
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A 33-year-old former director was sentenced by a Melbourne judge on Wednesday to over four years in prison for his “ruinous” SMSF scheme that defrauded vulnerable victims out of $521,000 in life savings.
County Court judge Fiona Todd said Mr Mudasir Mohammed Naseeruddin committed “gross and egregious” breaches of trust by misappropriating investments from six victims including a teacher, pharmacist and an Aboriginal health service provider over five years.
She sentenced Mr Naseeruddin to four years and four months in prison with a non-parole period of two years and nine months, agreeing with prosecutors that no sentence other than imprisonment would be adequate punishment.
Ms Todd said his crimes were characterised by targeting vulnerable victims with limited financial literacy.
“Your victims were people who earned modest incomes, doing work that was both ordinary and important and none were wealthy. The effect of what you did on your victims has been nothing short of ruinous,” she said.
Between 2015 and 2020, Mr Naseeruddin persuaded investors to roll their superannuation into SMSFs and to lend those funds to his two companies, Secure Investments Pty Ltd and Aquila Group Pty Ltd, promising they would be invested in property developments.
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But most victims only saw about $5,000 invested as promised, with Mr Naseeruddin appropriating the rest of their funds to purchase shares in a security company for his “personal benefit”.
ASIC caught onto the scheme in 2020, bringing charges against Mr Naseeruddin for dishonest conduct and misuse of his position as a director, as well as winding-up orders for the two companies.
This year, he pleaded guilty in August to two counts of dishonest conduct and two counts of failing to discharge his duties as a director in the best interests of a company.
Ms Todd described Mr Naseeruddin as “persuasive and manipulative”, constructing a “chaotic scheme” through a “cascade of falsehoods” by exploiting relationships of trust, in some cases with people within his community.
“You were methodical, persistent and prepared to arrange the various machinery of self-managed super funds, bank accounts and company structures to achieve your ends,” she said.
“You persuaded your victims to join the ruinous scheme by harnessing the language and authority of trusted institutions, peppering your speech with reference to ASIC approval or the consequences for a person’s status in the eyes of the ATO.”
Ms Todd also referred to impact statements in which his victims said they experienced “profound and ongoing” mental and physical consequences as a result of his actions.
While she took into consideration Mr Naseeruddin’s guilty plea, personal circumstances, relative youth and immaturity as factors that mitigated his sentence, she said the commercial world expected “people in positions of trust no matter how young they may be, to conform to exacting standards of honesty”.
“Through this sentence, the court denounces your conduct as egregious and unacceptable and totally destructive of people’s lives,” she said.
ASIC deputy chair Sarah Court said the outcome sent a strong message of the regulator’s conviction to investigate and prosecute directors’ dishonest conduct.
“Investors were encouraged to set up SMSFs so they could access their retirement funds to invest in these property companies. Sadly, these investors were taken advantage of and their funds were used dishonestly,” she said.
“ASIC has been dedicated to this case for some time, freezing the assets of Mr Naseeruddin’s companies in 2019 and obtaining orders to wind up the companies in 2020.”
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