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Ricky Hirsch: Conman makes fresh start in China, as scammed investors contemplate tough Christmas

Fugitive Perth conman Ricky Hirsch has uprooted from his Dubai bolthole to Guangzhou, China, while his many scam victims are struggling to keep their heads above water. Their last hope for accountability and justice hinges on whether the Australian Securities and Investments Commission approves funding for a forensic investigation into where the tens of millions of dollars that went into Mr Hirsch’s failed property development schemes ended up. The liquidator of the various companies under his Fulfil The Dream “empire” has applied to the corporate regulator for funding from its Assetless Administration Fund to conduct bank tracing and follow the money trail. As previously revealed by The Sunday Times, 138 unsecured creditors — mostly mum and dad investors — were owed $16.54 million by Fulfil The Dream. Several private lenders were owed much more, but many haven’t disclosed the amounts to the liquidator, Mathieu Tribut. The business had just $733.88 left in the bank when Mr Hirsch pulled the plug on March 21. Mr Tribut and his colleagues were unable to reconcile thousands of transactions with the limited funds — just $20,000 — provided by Mr Hirsch for their work. Mr Tribut cited “alleged fraud” as potentially one of the reasons for the failure of Mr Hirsch’s main company Fulfil The Dream and other connected entities. While his businesses were sinking, photos and videos on social media platforms revealed he and his Russian model wife, Lilya, were travelling the world and spending extravagantly. In recent months, as insolvency practitioners have raked over the carcasses of eight companies, his wife has posted photos and videos from the Maldives, Bali, and Sochi in Russia. None showed her husband, but she now calls herself Lilya Dean. Dean is Mr Hirsch’s middle name. In recent posts, she said she was getting used to her new home in Guangzhou, having moved into a new apartment in a “very cozy (sic) area”. “To live in an area with the maximum number of shopping centres per square metre. Perfect, love this area,” she posted this week. Some of his investors have lost their entire superannuation savings, while others have loans they’re still trying to repay. Most of Fulfil The Dream’s development sites never saw a shovel hit the ground, and the few that did were so poorly built they were deemed dangerous. One Bassendean apartment complex was demolished under the order of the local council. All the sites have been seized by the mortgagees, leaving the investors with nothing. Mr Hirsch used the equity in the land, bought with investors’ funds, to borrow large sums from private lenders, who’ve subsequently repossessed them. Many of the investors face financial ruin, having put their life savings and superannuation funds into Fulfil the Dream, which promised returns of up to 100 per cent. Predominantly from WA, they had long been lied to. Many received project updates to make them believe progress was being made on their developments, when the reality was the opposite. Based on the records obtained, the liquidator believed Fulfil the Dream was insolvent from about three years ago, which would make Mr Hirsch personally liable for any of the debts incurred since. “On the basis that the company was insolvent from 30 June 2021, a claim for insolvent trading in excess of $4 million may exist against (Mr Hirsch),” Mr Tribut reported. “Based on my investigations to date, we consider that the company’s failure may be attributed to: inadequate cash flow or high cash use; poor economic conditions; poor financial control including lack of records; and potentially, alleged fraud.” The liquidators have subsequently issued payment demands to Mr Hirsch to cover the losses the companies incurred as a result of insolvent trading and unreasonable director-related transactions. These included a loan to buy Mr Hirsch’s former oceanside home in Marmion, that wasn’t repaid. The Sunday Times understands Mr Hirsch has not yet responded to the demands. The Marmion property is in the process of being seized by mortgage lender, Prime Capital Securities, which loaned one of Mr Hirsch’s companies about $4.1 million under a deed in mid-2021, with Mr Hirsch as the guarantor. Mr Hirsch defaulted on the monthly repayments in May 2022. Investors had also sank millions into the Marmion property believing that once re-developed it was going to be sold, with the profits to flow back to them. The liquidator’s investigation was made harder by the poor state of the company’s books. Mr Tribut said the accounts had more than 2000 unreconciled bank account transactions. Transactions between Mr Hirsch’s companies had ”not been appropriately recorded with sufficient detail, or not recorded at all”. He said there appeared to be no accounting in regard to the joint-venture agreements with investors. “Several personal bank accounts associated with the director were also recorded in the company’s data file and it is unclear why,” he said. The liquidator said his investigations were mostly focused on reviewing the bank transactions from March 2022 to his appointment in March this year, these “being statements we were readily able to obtain from the bank”. During the period Fulfil The Dream was allegedly insolvent, Mr Hirsch paid for two lavish wedding ceremonies in Bali, his residence in Dubai and numerous holidays, including in the Greek Islands and New York. When The Sunday Times interviewed Mr Hirsch in September last year, after authorities refused to renew his builder’s registration, he insisted Fulfil The Dream had no money worries “No, we’re doing very well. (We’re) very strong and healthy,” he said. Wounded investors were effectively gagged. Some, who made made disparaging comments about Mr Hirsch, were issued legal threats. One Perth couple were sued, which had the effect of silencing others. Investors received no notification from Mr Hirsch that he no longer owned the development sites, which one by one, were seized by the highest-ranked mortgagees. It was left to this newspaper to give them the bad news. Some had signed up as far back as 2016. Semi-retired farmer Steven Allsopp was one of the last people to sink his money into Fulfil The Dream, after he was convinced by one of Mr Hirsch’s agents to entrust $4 million in the business. Mr Allsopp might be forced to sell his farm to recover his losses. He said his bank had told him that his money had gone into an account in Dubai. To counter the negative press in his home town as his business imploded, Mr Hirsch placed advertising features in online publications, claiming he was a real estate visionary and boasting that he had New York and Miami in his sights for expansion. In CEO Weekly in December, he bragged that he was “redefining industry standards and shaping the future of property development.” “We’re not only revolutionising our own projects but also setting new standards for the industry as a whole,” Mr Hirsch said. Fulfil The Dream’s website falsely claimed “pipelined projects” were worth $448m. As recently as January, another article gushed that Fulfil The Dream had “a track record of successful projects. It continues to push the boundaries, exploring new possibilities in construction and urban design”. The same month the first of his companies entered insolvency.

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Ricky Hirsch: Conman makes fresh start in China, as scammed investors contemplate tough Christmas

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Ricky Hirsch: Conman makes fresh start in China, as scammed investors contemplate tough Christmas