Police allege Mick Featherstone and his wife, Zoei Keong, were key players in the scheme which involved manipulating vulnerable people — including a man with a brain injury — to become “puppet directors” of 12 scam companies.

Investors were cold-called and asked to pay between $500 and $1000 for a four-day trial of betting and investment software. After seeing fake profits, they then signed 12-month contracts, police allege.

But the companies linked to the investments would disappear before the year was up, it is alleged, and about 600 people lost a total of between $15 million and $20 million.

Featherstone is a former Surfers Paradise criminal investigation branch boss and fraud squad member who is said to have built connections at the highest levels of the Queensland Police Service.

After a Crime and Cor­ruption Commission and Queensland Police investigation, Featherstone, 52, Keong, 32, and his son Zach, 21, were charged with aggravated fraud and money laundering.

Alleged associates Travis Burch, 36, and Robert Doueihi, 34, were also charged with both offences, while Kirsty Lester, 39, and Daniel Webb, 32, faced one charge each of aggravated fraud.

All seven were granted bail after police decided not to oppose their applications in the Brisbane Magistrates Court.

Police prosecutor Senior Sergeant Mark Gorton told the court the scam “generally related to people being conned into buying betting schemes or investment software schemes that promised high returns and the companies would then ultimately just disappear”.

“It would appear on the face of it that about 12 companies were involved,” he said.

Police will allege Zach Featherstone was in charge of managing “puppet directors” put in place at those companies.

One of the alleged “directors” was a bottle shop employee with a brain injury from a road accident. Another was told to sign 100 blank cheques in advance, police will allege.

When companies were shut down, new companies with different directors would allegedly already be set up so the scam could operate continuously.

Anti-bikies squad Taskforce Maxima played a key role in the investigation, with police examining alleged links between the boiler rooms and ­alleged Mongols enforcer Nick “The Knife” Forbes and Mongols associate Jason Trouchet.

Detectives allege Featherstone provided key elements required to facilitate the fraud, ran interference when people complained, and took a percentage of the profits, suspected to be as high as 10 per cent.

An alleged victim of the Pegasus scam told The Courier-Mail he lost about $1500.

He said he invested money into an account and was told the online site would place bets on US sporting events. The alleged victim said he paid $3300 to buy a “licence” and then invested a further $1000.

“They never lost a bet,” he said. “They’d bet 5 per cent of your balance each time, pretty much every day.

“You’d just see the results but you wouldn’t know the bet before the game was played. Exactly 12 months later, they were gone.”

The cases of all seven defendants will return to court next month.

February 25, 2016

Zach is up to the same sh*t as his father under the guise of a company called Internet Removals 1300 039 196

Caller: ROSE MEHEAGAN

THIS WAS A HORSE BETTING SCAM WHERE YOU GOT TO TRY IT OUT. IT LOOKED VERY GOOD AND PROFITABLE WHEN YOU FOLLOWED IT FOR A WHILE. THE WEBSITE WAS CALLED LAYEXCHANGE.
SO WE BOUGHT A LICENCE WHICH WAS $ 20.000. THIS ROSE WAS CALLING ALLTHE TIME TO INDUCE TO BUY MORE LICENCES. SHE SAID THERE WERE SOON NO LONGER ISSUING LICENCES.THE MONEY WAS PAID TO MOSTLY TO UKHB AND PACIFIC GAMING.WE HAD CHECKED THEIR ABN.
WE PAID A TOTAL AMOUNT OF $170.000 INTO THEIR WESTPACK ACCOUNTS.
IN DECEMBER 2013 THE WEBSITE SUDDENLY WAS NOT ACCESSABLE ANY MORE. WE WENT TO THEIR OFFICE ADDRESS AT THE GOLDCOAST AND FOUND OUT THAT THEY NEVER HAD AN OFFICE THERE. THE SECRETARY TOLD US THEY ONL TOOK THE PHONE CALLS.
NOW WE FOUND OUT THAT YOU CANNOT EVEN TRUST ASIC THAT THE ENTRIES ARE TRUE.