Angry investors chase down Sam Barnett, son of former Premier Colin Barnett, to recoup ‘what they are owed’

Tommi Pham remembers Sam Barnett, even though Mr Barnett this week struggled to recall him. Mr Pham, 40, was scammed out of $20,000 five years ago. The con trick didn’t set him back too much financially but it “cost him his reputation in Vietnam” and still rankles. “He's a real piece of work,” Mr Pham said. “I had a start-up business in Vietnam and lots of contacts there. One of my friends was a property developer and they’re always looking for foreign direct investment.” Mr Pham reached out to friends in Perth and one recommended Mr Barnett, whose father Colin was still the WA premier at the time. “Sam had an investment company, or so he said,” he said. “I met him at Burswood. I said, ‘Look, I've got all these projects in Vietnam that need capital. Can you source anything for me’?” He claimed Mr Barnett responded enthusiastically saying he’d got plenty of funds from China and Singapore and was looking for investment opportunities in Vietnam. “He said he had $50 to $80 million that he needed to invest quickly or it would be taken back,” Mr Pham said. “He said he had a representative in Indonesia and Thailand, but needed one in Vietnam. I said, ‘Cool — that's perfect’. “All I has to do was pay him $20,000, and then I’d get all the investment he was going to do in Vietnam and I’d get a percentage. I transferred the money to him and then I waited. I went back to Vietnam and teed up all these meetings and said, ‘I’ve got money coming here. (Sam’s) going to have a look at your projects and we’ll go from there’.” But the months passed and nothing happened. “He came up with excuse, after excuse, after excuse,” for the inactivity, Mr Pham said. “I was like, ‘come on where’s the money, you know, aren’t we supposed to be in a hurry?’ I’ve got like, pages and pages of emails and all the excuses in the world.” Out of the blue — some two years after they’d got together — he got an email from Sam that said his company Citylex was “winding up due to unforeseen circumstances”. Mr Pham wrote it off as a bad experience. He said his lawyer told him he had a strong case, but he’d spend more on legal fees chasing the money than the debt itself. “I had spent at least another $20,000 on expenses with trips between Vietnam and Australia,” he said. And then there was all the time wasted. The reputational damage annoyed him the most. “You can’t tell property developers that you've got capital coming in and then there’s nothing,” he said. Mr Barnett, 31, said he couldn’t recall Mr Pham when contacted by The Sunday Times on Thursday. On Friday, he phoned The Sunday Times to say he “now remembered him”. He said he’d not followed through with any investments in Vietnam because he had concerns about Mr Pham’s bona fides. He offered no explanation for not repaying him the $20,000. The Sunday Times has received similar complaints about every company Mr Barnett, 31, has ever been a director of. These are Pearllargo Pty Ltd, Citylex Pty Ltd, Gosnells York Pty Ltd and Sun Acres Pty Ltd. Mr Barnett is a defendant in three separate civil actions that have hearings in the District and Supreme Courts this week. The plaintiffs are all investors in Pearllargo’s “profit-sharing” scheme to buy and convert office suites into apartments in Johnston Street, Peppermint Grove. The scheme has failed to get off the ground and, as revealed by The West Australian, one investor who’s suing him claims she was tricked into putting $190,000 into the scheme based on Mr Barnett’s misrepresentations. She also alleges Mr Barnett reneged on personal guarantees to refund her within 11 business days if she wasn’t happy. Rubbing salt in the grandmother’s wounds, he has taken legal action against her for defamation and providing “confidential information” to this newspaper. But neither Mr Barnett or any of his legal representatives attended last Friday’s directions hearing on their action. Instead it was left to the woman’s lawyer Bogdan Soactar to put his side to registrar Simon Harman. “This is vexatious, it is frivolous and is an abuse of process ... an attempt to oppress her,” Mr Soactar told the court. Brothers Todd and Chadd Burgess are among another four plaintiffs who are suing over losses from the Johnston Street scheme. The brothers last month had Mr Barnett’s assets frozen, claiming he owes them $800,000. Meanwhile, payday lender Cash Direct is seeking the repossession of Mr Barnett’s Peppermint Grove office suite as well as the sale of his Port Gregory beachfront property. A writ claims he failed to make repayments on a $300,000 loan. There is another pressing legal matter racing towards Mr Barnett that could see Pearllargo wound up. Sydney-based investor Zeu Moodini, who is owed $349,152, has a creditor’s statutory demand that requires payment in under three weeks. If he doesn’t pay, Mr Moodini will move quickly to bring the house of cards crushing down. Mr Barnett will have to obtain a court order setting aside the statutory demand to stop that happening. He said he was confident he will be able to get the court order. Mr Moodini has complained to ASIC and WA Police about Mr Barnett’s conduct and even wrote to his father in May. Mr Moodini said he was first introduced to Sam Barnett in December 2018. He said Mr Barnett had shown an interest in his interior design company. At a follow-up meeting in Cottesloe, he said Mr Barnett had offered the opportunity to invest in a property syndicate called Sun Acres after someone had pulled out at the last minute. The generous terms would see him more than double his money and would pay out in just two months. He initially put in $41,878 on Christmas Eve that year, before doubling that investment days later. Mr Moodini said that two days into the New Year, a separate deal was struck, relating to a property development in Corfield Street, Gosnells. “Between 21 December 2018 and 12 February 2019, by way of multiple deposits I transferred $699,152.80 to Pearllargo’s bank account,” he said. “During this period Mr Barnett kept reassuring me that all documents formalising the contract would be presented to me and the delay was due to his lawyers. “On at least two occasions, I received envelopes with documents which had no relevance to me. On one occasion I attended offices of a legal firm in Sydney that had no knowledge of a meeting supposedly set up by Mr Barnett’s lawyer. “Mr Barnett guaranteed that all money would be refundable within a fortnight if requested. When questioned about such generous guarantee, Mr Barnett pointed out his trusted family name and numerous media articles about his business dealings.” Mr Barnett said his role (in the property syndicates) was to supply liquidity if needed and guarantee solvency.” Neither investments generated any returns for Mr Moodini, and after launching a legal action he’s clawed back half his money so far. The Gosnells syndicate flopped because the developer went into administration and it has emerged that the Sun Acres syndicate, which according to ASIC records issued 3479 shares worth $1.35 million, never bought any property. Investors believed the scheme was to buy and develop beachfront land at Greenough, near Geraldton. A Greenough beachfront landowner told The Sunday Times he’d been approached by Mr Barnett about a property for Sun Acres, but he didn’t pay the option fee and nothing eventuated. On Friday, Mr Barnett said Sun Acres was set up to acquire and sell option agreements for land and buildings. He said it had generated a profit. “It seems that all the shareholders are extremely happy. Anyone that wasn’t happy has been paid a refund in full,” he said. He added investors in the Gosnells syndicate, apart from Mr Moodini, had also been refunded. He said he was attempting to resolve that debt. He said he had executed settlement deeds with all the remaining shareholders in Sun Acres which would see them paid out within 10 business days of his bank accounts being unfrozen. “Just to make it clear, the reason for the settlement is not because Sun Acres has been a failure ... I don’t want to participate in business for the next 12 months. I just want to have some time off,” he said. The Sunday Times understands there are Sun Acres investors who are less than “extremely happy” and have yet to see any returns. They are extremely nervous about getting their money back. Their anxieties aren’t calmed by Mr Barnett’s unenviable reputation for telling whopping lies. These included his bogus brag that he was buying two Sumatran tigers, “Bobby and Mittens” from the zoo made famous in Netflix show Tiger King to go into a private zoo he was building in the Kimberley. He tried to explain away that elaborate fabrication by saying it was a ruse for TV reality show that he was starring in — also a lie. He was called out by Tiger King star Jeff Lowe on the big cat lie. He falsely claimed he’d bought two of Russell Crowe’s Sydney apartments and was called out by the Hollywood star’s agent. In another deception he announced a WA fund management company had committed $18.1 million to build a 68-room five-star resort on land at Yallabatharra, near Kalbarri. This included a $3.4 million advance. This news came as a surprise to the fund manager, which asked him to stop spreading false information. Mr Moodini believes that Mr Barnett has tried to cultivate a media image that he’s a successful business tycoon to make him more attractive to investors. Both Gosnells York Pty Ltd and Sun Acres Pty Ltd remain active companies, but ASIC records show neither have any current directors, which is a breach of the Corporations Act. “ASIC is currently making inquiries into the allegations against Pearllargo and Sam Barnett,” the corporate regulator this week said.

Angry investors chase down Sam Barnett, son of former Premier Colin Barnett, to recoup ‘what they are owed’

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