July 28, 2024 • 35 mins
The money trail is all leading back to a tiny town in Western Australia. But what business did Alan have there, and why was he so interested in its residents?
The Missing $49 Million is an eight-part investigative series by news.com.au, hosted by award-winning finance reporter Alex Turner-Cohen.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey. It seems like most
great tech entrepreneurs have their own story of starting from
nothing and making it in the bright lights of Silicon Valley.
Alan Metcalf had his own version of Silicon Valley right
here in Australia. It was a pilgrimage he made to
create his fortune and transform his.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Vision into reality.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Today, my producer Nina Young and I make that same
journey following in the footprints Alan left behind in the sand.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Be a triple vit to per.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Pot Deva Java.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
When you think about tech mechers, quiet coastal towns in
Western Australia probably don't immediately spring to mind. But for Allan,
Geraldton and ocean town, with a population of just forty
thousand people, about a five hour drive from Perth, was
an absolute gold mine. As he raised funds for sakes,
(01:01):
four hundred and fifty Geraldon residents contributed about fifteen million dollars.
Between them, they made up three quarters of Allen's total
shareholders and a third of the overall seed money. It
struck me as strange, why this town. I'm Alex Turner Cohen,
a finance and investigative reporter from news dot com dot
(01:22):
Au and you're listening to the Missing forty nine million.
This is episode four, Promised Land.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
It's got a port, it's got railways, it's got two hospitals,
it's got twenty schools, it's got a university center. It's
got everything.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
This is Ian Blaney. He was the local state politician
for the Geralton electorate for thirteen years. Ian lives in
Perth now, so Nina and I stopped by to visit
him before we begin our long drive to Geralton. We
sit in his air conditioned home, a welcome retreat from
the sweltering forty three degree Perth heat. Ian's term ended
(02:10):
in twenty twenty one, so I thought maybe his constituents
had complained about Alan over the years. It turns out
he'd actually met Alan.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
The government had started a program called Royalties for Regions,
which meant there was more money available for spending in
the regions, and so I had various people coming in
with ideas of things that they thought could be potentially
a Royalties for Regions program. So an MP, if you're
in government, you tend to get people who've got ideas
(02:39):
and want money, tend to call in and see you
quite regularly.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Alan was one of those people coming into pitch. Ian
doesn't remember the exact year, but he recalls it was
early in his term.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
He had quite a good pitch. He could talk quite well.
I can remember that he had a concept of build
a virtual village to sort of make more communications in
the community.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Ian explained that Alan's plan involved giving everyone in Geralton
a computer and creating some kind of closed network for
the town. He wanted to make Geralton a leader in tech.
It was a bit like his plan to turn Townsville
into Australia's version of Hollywood in the eighties, which I
explored in an earlier episode.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
I found it a little bit difficult to be a
proponent for it because, to be honest, he might have
said he only wanted a million dollars, but that's even
a million dollars for governments, not a small amount of money.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
So I just thought, no, this is shonky. I don't
really want anything to do with it. The whole concept
I thought was a bit crazy, I suppose, but you know,
when you meet someone who's a true believer in something
and there's not a touch of cynicism in there at all,
and I suppose that's good salespeople are like that. It
was a bit of the fervor of the converted fanatic
(03:59):
or something, you know, But I wasn't very receptive.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Ian was also puzzled by Alan's interest in his town, and.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
He was very strong that Geralden was the right place
at the right time for it to be tried out
sort of thing. I don't know why it's settled on Geralton,
but there must have been a reason.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Maybe he didn't choose somewhere closer to home because he
didn't want to be in a place where there was
a chance people might have known him.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I suppose.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
As I step back outside and feel myself melting into
the pavement from the unrelenting heat, I'm a little excited.
I'm on the other side of the country where the
bulk of the forty nine million dollars came from. Maybe
someone knows more about the money, or at least more
about why Alan had his sights set on Geralton. It's
time for the next step to speak with some of
(04:53):
the Geralton investors, or try to. A few of them
are now living in Perth. They haven't It's been very
responsive to emails. I just knocked on the door of
a man who lived in Perth who used to be
from Geraldton. I know he was involved in the Safe
Worlds project, and he actually let me into his house
and he said he didn't want to talk. He's apparently
(05:15):
dealt with journalists before in another life and doesn't trust us,
but he was happy for me to lely my details
in case he did change his mind. And while he
was in another room looking for a pen and paper,
his wife came over to me and asked what I
was doing there and what this was all about, and
I told her I was a journalist doing a report
on Safe Worlds, and she immediately rolled her eyes and
(05:37):
said I knew it was a scam. And then he
came back out and I left all my details behind it.
I guess it's up to him if he ever wants
to get back in touch, but it was just interesting
to see another tale of the man who's all in
and the wife who's all out when it comes to
Safe Worlds. We tried one more Hello you home.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
Okay, it doesn't look like he's here, so I'm just
going to leave him a note. I haven't got a
phone number for him that I do have an email address,
which he hasn't replied to, though it hasn't bounced.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
It turns out this investor no longer lives at the address,
but the current homeowners pass on my note. He calls
me on the number I left and agrees to give
me some comments, provided he stays anonymous. This voice actor
is reading out what he said during our conversation.
Speaker 6 (06:34):
Alan was a con merchant. He took advantage of what
was happening in wa. The reason he targeted a lot
of farmers was the resources burn. It was all a
big con.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
There was one investor in Perth willing to meet with
us and tell me more. His name is Phil Bardon,
only we weren't allowed to go to his house. He
said his wife has banned all mention of Safe Worlds
in their home.
Speaker 7 (07:00):
Wilt's never forgiven me, he begout that tonight. It's been
a real bone of attention ever since I mentioned Safe
world But I would love to invite you to have place,
but she's not a happy girl at the moment.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
We record this in my hotel room, with Nina perched
on the end of the bed holding the microphone. Phil
grips onto pages and pages of documents and emails he's
collected over the years, shuffling them as he talks. He
got into safe worlds in twenty thirteen after a chance
encounter with an old friend.
Speaker 7 (07:30):
I bumped into Rod McKay told me that you know, look,
you want to earn some money, and I said yes.
So I met Rod. And at the time Alan had
arranged a meeting with a group of scheerholders over here
in Perth. So I went initially to this yearholder's meeting,
not knowing what it was about. All I learned at
(07:51):
the time that he said he had a secret of AI,
and at that time, back twenty thirteen, really set about
artificial intelligence. That Ottawa Rod that this company invests money
now it was going to float in six weeks time.
He didn't force me, he said, it's going to float
six weeks time and these year is going to go
for one dollar of five dollars overnight.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
And can you tell me a.
Speaker 7 (08:14):
Bit about Rod?
Speaker 2 (08:15):
So how did you know Rod? And where was he from?
Speaker 7 (08:18):
I went to the school with Rod in Jeralton many
years ago, back in the sixties. Lovely guy. We played
tennis together.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
In addition, to being a lovely tennis player. Rod McKay
is one of Allen's earliest and most devoted disciples. I
learned from Phil that Rod is the reason Geraldton turned
into a Garden of Eden for the Safeworld's project. I'd
heard rumors about someone who invested more than a million dollars.
It was nothing more than that a rumor until now.
(08:49):
The story goes, Alan and Rodd were sitting next to
each other on a flight and got talking. In emails
rod scent, which I've obtained, He says he originally owned
Alan one point five million dollars. Rod was a wheat
and a sheep farmer and sold these farms when he retired.
My understanding is that's where the money came from. But
(09:10):
Alan couldn't pay it back. He convinced Rod to turn
his loan into one point five million dollars worth of
safe World shares. Instead, Rod sprouked Safeworlds to people he
knew in Geraldon, and he knew a lot of people.
In one email Rod sent, he wrote that he personally
got four hundred and fifty shareholders on board, bringing in
(09:32):
fifteen million dollars worth of investment. Phil met Allan for
the first time thanks to Rod.
Speaker 7 (09:40):
So what the airport and Rod had album there and
I reduced myself to him, and Rod said Phil gonbia
an investor, and I said, yes, I am. I hope
this is good because I lost money in eighty seven crash.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Phil invested fifty thousand dollars. It wasn't a small out
for him and his family. What he received in return
was a share certificate. Phil started to get a bad
feeling and wanted to pull out, but that didn't go
down well.
Speaker 7 (10:10):
I read him at Texas said this is not right.
I want my money back. He sort of scoffed and said,
you're getting yourself into I said to Alan, I've got
the secret to levitation, and I'm going to start raising
some money. I'm not going to tell you how it works.
I was that wild, and I don't know whether I
(10:30):
go response back. But I was really niggling him, you know.
I said, if you're going to see me, see me.
I call him every name under the sun. I'm maybe
teen him fifteen email. I was having a couple of
years and I never seen me, so I knew that
something was right.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Anyway, Alan cut Phil off from all communication about Safe
Worlds The only updates he receives now are the ones
sent on by his cousin, a man called Warren Bardon.
Speaker 7 (10:56):
Look, I put too much trust in people. People get convoys,
and they tend to try and spread the demies other people.
And this is great and right than a few other
quite a few Barnas I think might have spread the
word and told people to buy these years. Most people
they approached were farmers or every work is like me.
You know, I'm not a uni personal any but it's
(11:18):
just said. I thought it was a good investment at
the time, but I quickly fed. When I fed out,
I tried to warn people, and certain people said, look,
you know, look that's good. I think some people are
still convinced.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
If this is starting to sound familiar to you, well, yes,
me too. It's just like the enormous success Alan had
in securing investments from sugar farmers in the nineteen eighties
for his film projects, which I found out about an
episode too. It seemed now he turned his attention back
to what had worked before, just for a different project,
(11:51):
different location, different decade. What was especially different this time
was that all of these people in Geraldton needed a
little more convincing. Soon Alan was jetting in and out
of the town, himself a shepherd, making sure his flock
stayed on the right path. It's safe to say Phil
is not Alan's biggest fan, as Nina and I discover
(12:13):
when she asks him what he'd say.
Speaker 8 (12:16):
If you had to describe Metcalf in five words, A.
Speaker 7 (12:20):
Big poppers person spoke the andietype of thing just a
few words, A convent desateful, a conment. How could you
do it? That's not's sorry.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
After speaking to Phil, I now want to go to
Geryalton and find out more. The missing money is proving elusive,
and so far it's harder to get a solid grasp
on it than I'd hoped. But maybe a trip to
the place at the center of it all will change that.
So the next morning, Nina and I begin the long
drive out of Perth and on to Geralton. In twenty
(12:57):
twenty three, a company named Avenue Perth studied thirty cities
in Australia to determine the most livable and least livable
town in the country based on the safety index from
the average cost of living, number of banks, and number
of restaurants. Geraldton took out the non coveted title of
least livable town in the country. A glance at the
(13:19):
crime statistics and the reviews left on local hotels doesn't
paint the brightest picture. Many people online suggested sleeping with
a chair against the motel room door.
Speaker 8 (13:30):
So here was my question. As we drive into Jerylton. Oh,
we just walked Welcome to Geraldton. So we've just driven
into Jerylton. So my question was you I have the
impression that you're a bit of a type A personality.
What do you think about that?
Speaker 1 (13:49):
I am a self confessed type A person Me and
my roommate both agree on that.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
On that note, and very driven.
Speaker 8 (13:57):
So what happens if you can't find the money?
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I've tried everything I can think of outside of getting
court ordered documents, but at this point, a lot of
what I know about the money is just a lot
of conjecture from people who have theories that could range
anywhere from very plausible to very implausible.
Speaker 8 (14:19):
Okay, so that's a very type bay answer. Emotionally, how
do you feel about if you can't find the money?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Well, I will feel like I've failed a bit in
a way because I have told people that I am
tracking the money. That's why I'm doing this podcast because
I'm trying to find their money. So I feel like
I'm not going to be able to tell them at
the end of it, I know where your money went,
not even that I wasn't able to find it.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I just don't know where it was spent.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
So that will be a bit of a shame if.
Speaker 8 (14:53):
I can't find it, because that's taking on a lot
of pressure. That's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Well, yeah, people reached out to me saying can you
do something? Can you kind of raise some awareness about
this and try to tell me where my money went?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
And so far don't have an answer. I have a
lot of theories.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
And hopefully we confirm some of them up and we
can cross some of them out as what's happened body?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
What do you think that you What do you think
when you kind of.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Set out to answer a question in a story and
you get to this point where it's not looking like
you can you have a kind of solid answer on it.
Speaker 8 (15:32):
I think the journey is the journeys as an answer,
here's the non type a response.
Speaker 9 (15:38):
What's the expression The journey beats the destination?
Speaker 8 (15:43):
Maybe the money was the friends we made along the way.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
After a long drive five and a bit hours, we
arrive our dead Huntsmand greets me on the welcome out
of my motel room. Next time I notice it the
spiders not so dead. Body has moved slightly. The area
looks like any other quiet coastal town, long stretches of road,
drought plagued patches of grass, and plenty of fly in
(16:11):
fly out miners around the place, driving up the price
of coffee.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Do you want to get something?
Speaker 5 (16:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (16:20):
How do you think we're going about blending in?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
We are not doing great. Nina's big microphone stands out
on the bright and sunny foreshore. It's hard to see
Allan's vision to turn this place into a virtual village,
but maybe the people that live here have another view
on things. We ask a couple of ladies walking by
if they think Geralton could be Australia's Silicon Valley.
Speaker 9 (16:42):
Don't know anything about it?
Speaker 10 (16:45):
Is it a mine?
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I see? Silicon Valley is like this really innovative place
in America where all their startups begin, Like Google all
kind of started from Silicon Valley, so it's kind of
seen as this really entrepreneurial.
Speaker 8 (16:58):
Place to be technology.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yeah, a real tech take your own place. Why wouldn't
you go to Perth for that?
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Or are you look they're looking for.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Somewhere different to Perth or yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 10 (17:08):
We're the biggest regional town normal.
Speaker 7 (17:11):
Per But so you don't think that would be a
good idea.
Speaker 11 (17:16):
I just feel like during lax a little bit.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
So if Geraldon was never going to cut it as
a tech center, why would Allan be so interested in
the town? A local couple fills us.
Speaker 11 (17:28):
In Mainly because there are people with money and sometimes
you have limited ideas if you don't have a financial advisor,
you just think, oh wow, that sounds great, that sounds
like it could work, but maybe they don't do the research.
So because there is some money here, because we've got
the farming, Yeah, we've got the farming. We've got also
(17:51):
the gray fish industry, there are people with money here,
and if you're wanting to grow your money and invest
I'd say that would probably be the reasons maybe the
reasons why. And it's a remoteness from the city as well.
And there is also a little bit of a small town,
small community mentality too, so you tend to trust people
(18:12):
that comes into town.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
There are many investors in town, but not many willing
to talk to us. Some are still true believers in
Allan's vision and others just don't want to think about
Safe World ever.
Speaker 6 (18:24):
Again.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
One man is open to a visit, though, Warren Bardon,
a distant cousin of Phil who we'd met in Perth.
Warren has lived in geraldon his whole life, and you
can tell because he wasn't breaking a sweat in the
non air conditioned house we met him in even though
the mercury was topping forty four degrees. Warren, his brother
and his dad invested in the Safe World's program through
(18:48):
Rod McKay, who Phil also mentioned. Unlike Phil, Warren didn't
know Rod beforehand.
Speaker 6 (18:55):
He was sort of the main player in West Australia Safeworlds.
My brother was. He liked the idea and everyone he
spoke to one of the pieces of the.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Safewelds and you wanted a piece of it as well. Yeah,
so what did they say to you? What did you
think it was that made you want a piece of it?
Speaker 6 (19:12):
Well, mainly pushing the idea that it's a lot better
than Google and it'll overtake Google. We will finish up
having its own banking systems and all sorts like that.
We were told Alan when he come across here. He
said that basically Google at the time was worth ran
about thousand dollars a year, and everybody sort of said, wow,
(19:33):
it's worth checking some money out. So everyone sort of
just jumped on board with it.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
When Alan flew into Geraldton and held a meeting for
potential investors in town, Warren went along. He can't remember
when it was, though he did start investing in two
thousand and nine.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Where was the meeting? Was it in a kind of
town hall or.
Speaker 6 (19:53):
Down the Ocean center down there? The conference room there,
and we might ed to check that out in the
middle of town there.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
And were there many people? How many people?
Speaker 6 (20:02):
In thirty or forty?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
There was he showing you anything, showcasing anything.
Speaker 6 (20:06):
I remember he did try to shower something on the computer,
but he couldn't get it sort of work, and probably
can sort of blame Telta or something that anyway, So
he just kept talking about how great it was.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Even with the text crew up. Warren was convinced and
put in some money. The next time Alan came to town,
it was more eventful.
Speaker 6 (20:26):
The second meeting, a couple of people just walked down
the meeting. Really, I remember Alan saying, well, then they
run to walkout if they want to walk out something.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Well, do you know why they walked out?
Speaker 6 (20:37):
I think they thought it wasn't going to happen.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah, well that's kind of pretty like strong reaction to it.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Were you were you tempted to walk out?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
No?
Speaker 6 (20:47):
Not really no, no, yeah, Like I said, he's got
the idea. And when you speak to people like Rod McKay,
well he was actually really on the committee apparently, and
he was on the board or whatever you say. He's
a very honest person. And I heard he put quite
a bit of money in it. And so you work
on trust when you're working with those or meet those
(21:09):
sort of people.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
You know, working on trust. Warren ended up investing big time.
Speaker 6 (21:14):
I think I finished up putting him about twenty twenty
thousand in. I bought shares for me kids, you know,
a couple of thousand shares each, sort of two and
half thousand shares each, just in case it did take
off and it was going to be as good as
what they said, Well, children would have been happy with me.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Later on, doubts slithered into Warren's mind.
Speaker 6 (21:33):
I sort of was wondering myself why he would come
all the way from Queensland to try and raise money
in Drip in Western Australia. It was so good. Should
have been able to raise enough money over in Queensland
and over his coast.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
And he started to notice that Alan was changing the
price of shares.
Speaker 6 (21:52):
The share price has gone up and down all the time,
you know, so when they needed more money, they dropped
the price to shares, gave people a bonus shares if
they can buy a block of fifty thousand shares.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, what do you think about that? Because that sounds
like it's almost.
Speaker 6 (22:09):
I think it's a bit unfair. And the people that
bought in earlier, and the people that bought in for say,
I heard some people paid five dollars a share. I
think it was unfair when he dropped the share plaster
a dollar share, I think it was unfair for those people.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Going through the trail of emails Alan left behind which
investors have sent to me, I learned some people were
sold shares in Safe Worlds for as little as ten cents,
while others had to pay five dollars for the privilege,
and while Alan seemed to change what he was charging
different investors, he continued to drum up money. He was
(22:45):
encouraging Warren's father to lend him a further one hundred
thousand dollars, and he was nagging him while a bond
and family member was in hospital. With concerns mounting, Warren
and his family refused to invest anymore.
Speaker 6 (22:59):
The thing that sort and we didn't even get any
financial reports one to start with it. But there was
no financial reports, What's where the money's gone, What's happened?
Speaker 2 (23:09):
And what was this over the many years that you
were investor.
Speaker 6 (23:12):
There, or from two thousand nine or when it was,
We never received any how the company's going real?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Actually did that kind of raise some alarm bells for you?
Speaker 7 (23:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (23:23):
For sure? For sure. There's another another thing that worried
me when Allen was in drilt and he made a statement,
the company takes a lot of money to keep going.
It's taken two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a months.
He said that in public, and I thought, well, it
can't be possible.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
We spend some time looking through Warren and his late
father's stock certificates. There's dozens of them. He's found them
all and laid them out on his dining room table.
These simple a four pieces of paper are the only
thing Alan gave shareholders as proof they had a stake
in Safe Worlds. For some, it's a reminder that their
(24:01):
involvement wasn't just a bad dream.
Speaker 12 (24:03):
So look at this here it says this share was
made in twenty twelve, and this one was in twenty fourteen,
so in okay, so there was a bit slow for
that year. So twenty twelve, six hundred and thirty eight shares,
and then afterwards it was like less than thirty shares
made in that period of time, but then suddenly it
(24:26):
exploded the following year in twenty fourteen, another like three
hundred shares.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Oh well, look this is share number twelve hundred and
eighty four. It's over one thousand, like maybe not one
thousand people, but over one thousand certificates.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Certificates were issued.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
The more certificates, the more money Alan got. This was
pretty eye opening for me. It's a way I can
figure out how many single investments were made into the
company and how frequently people were investing. War on certificates
are on a piece of paper with a green border
and an image of an E. It says Safe World's
Internet Television, Inc. To the left side at leasts what
(25:05):
number this share certificate is, and on the other side
it states how many shares you're getting for it. Warren
has signed the document I'm describing and bought two thousand shares.
There's an official looking gold seal that sits in between
the signatures of Alan and his wife Mary at the
bottom of the certificate. From speaking to other investors, I
(25:26):
know that one man's name was misspelled on his certificate.
Others waited months and even years to receive their certificate,
and in one case it never arrived. Then I noticed
something alarming.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
What do you think about this on the back? Have
you read this stuff on the back of the share certificate?
Have you ever seen that?
Speaker 7 (25:46):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (25:47):
I've probably read it. But are these shares an issue
in Pennsylvania or somewhere apparently?
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I know that Alan started the business in the US,
but I'm not sure why he would do that when
most of the time he was based in Australia. I
turn over Warren's certificate and there's a disclaimer.
Speaker 13 (26:06):
It reads the securities represented by this certificate have been
acquired for investment and have not been registered under the
Securities Act of nineteen ninety three of the United States
or the securities laws of any state thereof, or any
other nation. These securities may not be sold or transferred
in the absence of such registration or an exemption they're
from under such Act and compliance with any applicable state
(26:28):
of foreign securities laws.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
When I go back, I realized every certificate has this.
It certainly seems like a significant discovery, but maybe this
is all perfectly above board. I'll need to look into
this when I'm back in Sydney. Nina and I leave
Warren's house as the sun sets over Geraldton. It's interesting
(26:52):
how a lot of these people that invested, some of
them are not that upset about it, you know, even
though they invested like twenty five thand dollars. They've just
said we just got back from speaking to Warren barn
and he said that was money.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
You could afford to lose. So these are successful people.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Not everybody has a spare twenty grant drop into a venture.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
That may or may not take off.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Nina, what's your theory and why you think these people
who are obviously quite good at what they do and
are quite successful from a societal perspective, are still kind
of putting money.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
And not doing any of this due diligence that they should.
Speaker 8 (27:25):
Be because they've made their money in a non technology sector.
You know, they've made their money through farming, through property,
through you know, the old school ways that people would
make money. And then you've got this sort of smart
looking dude who seems to know what he's talking about
about technology, and he's saying all these buzzwords like AI, algorithm, Google,
(27:48):
LinkedIn words that like uniquet logic, Yeah, and you can
recognize them as being vaguely towards technology. But if you
don't know anything about technology, you know, you're not going to.
Speaker 7 (27:59):
Know even how to look into that.
Speaker 8 (28:02):
So I think that's the secret is he's finding people
who have goot amounts of money who are interested in
business who he can kind of fool about technology. Yeah,
because a lot of these people, like we spoke to
Phil London, I think, who worked in furniture retail.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Like as a kind of business owner. Then someone else
worked in the health sector. So these are successful people
that you know, their own properties and multiple properties. They
can drop fifty k on a project like this, But
they don't seem to have any of that background, and
they don't really seem to understand what the product is.
They just keep saying to me every person who've asked lately,
(28:41):
I've asked them, what do you think Safe Worlds is?
And they just say it was meant to be.
Speaker 8 (28:45):
Bigger than Google, bigger than Google.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
But when I ask them why, they can't actually explain
to me why, what about it was going to be
bigger than Google? They just keep saying that kind of
Google buzz phrase. Personally, I wouldn't put twenty thousand dollars
into something that was told me bigger than Google, but
I didn't understand what it actually did. But he was
a very good salesman from what I can understand. He
(29:08):
always came in a suit, even in Geraldton, which yesterday
was about forty nine degrees. At Warren Bardon's farm, which
is a little bit further inland, he said it hit
fifty degrees. But Alan metcalf is coming in a suit,
hiring out a conference center, putting out sandwiches, putting out
little finger food like sandwiches. Yeah, and he's there and
(29:28):
he's very convincing, and as one person said to me,
he was speaking like what he had in his hand
was gold, and that was really impressionable on these people.
We leave Allan's Promised Land. The next day, when I'm
back in Sydney, I can barely wait to speak with
an expert about these share certificates.
Speaker 10 (29:51):
My name is Besta and A I am the investments
and portfolio manager at UNSW Founders.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Besta decides which startups the University of New southwayes should
back and which ones they shouldn't. I meet in her
office countless startup founders have no doubt sat in the
same chair I'm perched in, trying to convince her they'll
be the next Steve Jobs. Only I'm here for a
different reason. I show her the Safe World certificate.
Speaker 10 (30:17):
It doesn't sound legitimate at all. It doesn't sound like
they had any of the right legal documents in place.
I mean, these people should have all received like shareholders
agreements and were completely over the process.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
It says it's cocorporated under the laws of Pennsylvania, but
then on the back it says it's not incorporated under
any law.
Speaker 10 (30:37):
I think the disclaimer throws me. I think that's the
main part. Yeah, it's weird, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
BESTA taps away on her laptop and turns it around
so I can see the screen. So you've just pulled
up an example of what a legitimate share certificate looks like.
Just describe to me what you're looking at and how
it's different to that other document I showed you.
Speaker 10 (30:58):
The difference is that it actually says that the company
is incorporated in New South Wales under the Corporation's Act,
so it is registered in Australia, unlike the other one,
than not being registered in the US or anywhere anywhere.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Yeah, so how many pages is this document? At least
thirty pages from the look of it, and this is this.
Speaker 10 (31:19):
Much longer, you know, depending on I guess at what
stage the company is raising capital and how much funding
and how many shareholders coming in. Yeah, but basically these
are all the different rights and how it works. If
a company was to change anything in their shareholding.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
And these people just direct transferred to him and got
their shares to forget two months later or never, So what.
Speaker 7 (31:42):
Do you think about that?
Speaker 10 (31:44):
Maybe they're not actually shareholders, like maybe they just took
their money.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
I've been trying to figure that out, and I thought
Geraldon might have the answer. Although I had to return
home mostly empty handed, I feel close defining the money
and understanding the man who took it, and more inspired
to do so. For the record, while I didn't see
Geraldton as Australia's Silicon Valley, the scenery was beautiful and
(32:12):
the people were kind and welcoming, I don't think it
lived up to the least Livable City title. My biggest
takeaway from the trip is that the key to gaining
followers to your cause is to have a true believer
by your side, a man of the people who can
proselytize on your behalf. That man, for Alan was Rod McKay.
While I tried many times to have a chat with Rod,
(32:34):
my attempts were futile until finally I got this short response.
A voice actor is reading it out.
Speaker 14 (32:42):
What is your agenda with Safe Worlds and or what
are you trying to achieve? Any suggestions that safe world
is a scam are misleading. Proof of this is the
review of the software by a leading academic INAI I.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Tell him I'm looking for the missing money. There are
no more messages from him. Rod was Allen's most devoted disciple.
But as I would soon discover cracks were appearing in
his faith, he would turn on the man he most respected,
and he would go on to become the biggest enemy
of safe worlds, a judas in the eyes of the Metcalfs.
Speaker 14 (33:18):
The time for delusion is over. You have overseen the
demise of a fifty million dollar company made up predominantly
of mum and dad investors.
Speaker 9 (33:27):
Clayton, I pledge we commit to commercialize this technology and
take it to the world to fulfill his dream. I
know that this sounds impossible, but Jesus said, with men,
it's impossible, but not with God. For with God all
things are possible.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
We are as anxious as all shareholders are to see
this matter concluded soon, and on the best of terms,
I am doing everything I can to achieve this.
Speaker 7 (33:55):
Look after yourself and your shareholders who have committed themselves
to you and your hospital ideas.
Speaker 14 (34:01):
Keep them close, as they are the only real thing
in this whole sorry affair.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
That's next time on the Missing forty nine million. Thanks
for listening. A new episode is coming out weekly. Wherever
you get your podcasts, make sure you subscribe so you
don't miss an episode, head to news dot com dot
(34:27):
Au to read more of my reporting on this story.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Do you know more?
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Get in touch through our dedicated tip inbox Missing Millions
at news dot com dot au or contact me directly
on Alex dot Turner, Dash Cohen at news dot com
dodau or look me up on Twitter to get my details.
I'm your host, Alex Turner Cohen. Nina Young is the
executive producer, sound design and editing by Tiffany Dimack. Our
(34:52):
editorial director is Dan Box. Grant McAvaney is our legal advisor,
and Kerrie Warren is the editor of News dot com
dood AU. Special thanks to our voice actors Jack Evans
and John ty Burton.
Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey. It seems like most
great tech entrepreneurs have their own story of starting from
nothing and making it in the bright lights of Silicon Valley.
Alan Metcalf had his own version of Silicon Valley right
here in Australia. It was a pilgrimage he made to
create his fortune and transform his.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Vision into reality.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Today, my producer Nina Young and I make that same
journey following in the footprints Alan left behind in the sand.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Be a triple vit to per.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Pot Deva Java.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
When you think about tech mechers, quiet coastal towns in
Western Australia probably don't immediately spring to mind. But for Allan,
Geraldton and ocean town, with a population of just forty
thousand people, about a five hour drive from Perth, was
an absolute gold mine. As he raised funds for sakes,
(01:01):
four hundred and fifty Geraldon residents contributed about fifteen million dollars.
Between them, they made up three quarters of Allen's total
shareholders and a third of the overall seed money. It
struck me as strange, why this town. I'm Alex Turner Cohen,
a finance and investigative reporter from news dot com dot
(01:22):
Au and you're listening to the Missing forty nine million.
This is episode four, Promised Land.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
It's got a port, it's got railways, it's got two hospitals,
it's got twenty schools, it's got a university center. It's
got everything.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
This is Ian Blaney. He was the local state politician
for the Geralton electorate for thirteen years. Ian lives in
Perth now, so Nina and I stopped by to visit
him before we begin our long drive to Geralton. We
sit in his air conditioned home, a welcome retreat from
the sweltering forty three degree Perth heat. Ian's term ended
(02:10):
in twenty twenty one, so I thought maybe his constituents
had complained about Alan over the years. It turns out
he'd actually met Alan.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
The government had started a program called Royalties for Regions,
which meant there was more money available for spending in
the regions, and so I had various people coming in
with ideas of things that they thought could be potentially
a Royalties for Regions program. So an MP, if you're
in government, you tend to get people who've got ideas
(02:39):
and want money, tend to call in and see you
quite regularly.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Alan was one of those people coming into pitch. Ian
doesn't remember the exact year, but he recalls it was
early in his term.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
He had quite a good pitch. He could talk quite well.
I can remember that he had a concept of build
a virtual village to sort of make more communications in
the community.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Ian explained that Alan's plan involved giving everyone in Geralton
a computer and creating some kind of closed network for
the town. He wanted to make Geralton a leader in tech.
It was a bit like his plan to turn Townsville
into Australia's version of Hollywood in the eighties, which I
explored in an earlier episode.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
I found it a little bit difficult to be a
proponent for it because, to be honest, he might have
said he only wanted a million dollars, but that's even
a million dollars for governments, not a small amount of money.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
So I just thought, no, this is shonky. I don't
really want anything to do with it. The whole concept
I thought was a bit crazy, I suppose, but you know,
when you meet someone who's a true believer in something
and there's not a touch of cynicism in there at all,
and I suppose that's good salespeople are like that. It
was a bit of the fervor of the converted fanatic
(03:59):
or something, you know, But I wasn't very receptive.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Ian was also puzzled by Alan's interest in his town, and.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
He was very strong that Geralden was the right place
at the right time for it to be tried out
sort of thing. I don't know why it's settled on Geralton,
but there must have been a reason.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Maybe he didn't choose somewhere closer to home because he
didn't want to be in a place where there was
a chance people might have known him.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I suppose.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
As I step back outside and feel myself melting into
the pavement from the unrelenting heat, I'm a little excited.
I'm on the other side of the country where the
bulk of the forty nine million dollars came from. Maybe
someone knows more about the money, or at least more
about why Alan had his sights set on Geralton. It's
time for the next step to speak with some of
(04:53):
the Geralton investors, or try to. A few of them
are now living in Perth. They haven't It's been very
responsive to emails. I just knocked on the door of
a man who lived in Perth who used to be
from Geraldton. I know he was involved in the Safe
Worlds project, and he actually let me into his house
and he said he didn't want to talk. He's apparently
(05:15):
dealt with journalists before in another life and doesn't trust us,
but he was happy for me to lely my details
in case he did change his mind. And while he
was in another room looking for a pen and paper,
his wife came over to me and asked what I
was doing there and what this was all about, and
I told her I was a journalist doing a report
on Safe Worlds, and she immediately rolled her eyes and
(05:37):
said I knew it was a scam. And then he
came back out and I left all my details behind it.
I guess it's up to him if he ever wants
to get back in touch, but it was just interesting
to see another tale of the man who's all in
and the wife who's all out when it comes to
Safe Worlds. We tried one more Hello you home.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
Okay, it doesn't look like he's here, so I'm just
going to leave him a note. I haven't got a
phone number for him that I do have an email address,
which he hasn't replied to, though it hasn't bounced.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
It turns out this investor no longer lives at the address,
but the current homeowners pass on my note. He calls
me on the number I left and agrees to give
me some comments, provided he stays anonymous. This voice actor
is reading out what he said during our conversation.
Speaker 6 (06:34):
Alan was a con merchant. He took advantage of what
was happening in wa. The reason he targeted a lot
of farmers was the resources burn. It was all a
big con.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
There was one investor in Perth willing to meet with
us and tell me more. His name is Phil Bardon,
only we weren't allowed to go to his house. He
said his wife has banned all mention of Safe Worlds
in their home.
Speaker 7 (07:00):
Wilt's never forgiven me, he begout that tonight. It's been
a real bone of attention ever since I mentioned Safe
world But I would love to invite you to have place,
but she's not a happy girl at the moment.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
We record this in my hotel room, with Nina perched
on the end of the bed holding the microphone. Phil
grips onto pages and pages of documents and emails he's
collected over the years, shuffling them as he talks. He
got into safe worlds in twenty thirteen after a chance
encounter with an old friend.
Speaker 7 (07:30):
I bumped into Rod McKay told me that you know, look,
you want to earn some money, and I said yes.
So I met Rod. And at the time Alan had
arranged a meeting with a group of scheerholders over here
in Perth. So I went initially to this yearholder's meeting,
not knowing what it was about. All I learned at
(07:51):
the time that he said he had a secret of AI,
and at that time, back twenty thirteen, really set about
artificial intelligence. That Ottawa Rod that this company invests money
now it was going to float in six weeks time.
He didn't force me, he said, it's going to float
six weeks time and these year is going to go
for one dollar of five dollars overnight.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
And can you tell me a.
Speaker 7 (08:14):
Bit about Rod?
Speaker 2 (08:15):
So how did you know Rod? And where was he from?
Speaker 7 (08:18):
I went to the school with Rod in Jeralton many
years ago, back in the sixties. Lovely guy. We played
tennis together.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
In addition, to being a lovely tennis player. Rod McKay
is one of Allen's earliest and most devoted disciples. I
learned from Phil that Rod is the reason Geraldton turned
into a Garden of Eden for the Safeworld's project. I'd
heard rumors about someone who invested more than a million dollars.
It was nothing more than that a rumor until now.
(08:49):
The story goes, Alan and Rodd were sitting next to
each other on a flight and got talking. In emails
rod scent, which I've obtained, He says he originally owned
Alan one point five million dollars. Rod was a wheat
and a sheep farmer and sold these farms when he retired.
My understanding is that's where the money came from. But
(09:10):
Alan couldn't pay it back. He convinced Rod to turn
his loan into one point five million dollars worth of
safe World shares. Instead, Rod sprouked Safeworlds to people he
knew in Geraldon, and he knew a lot of people.
In one email Rod sent, he wrote that he personally
got four hundred and fifty shareholders on board, bringing in
(09:32):
fifteen million dollars worth of investment. Phil met Allan for
the first time thanks to Rod.
Speaker 7 (09:40):
So what the airport and Rod had album there and
I reduced myself to him, and Rod said Phil gonbia
an investor, and I said, yes, I am. I hope
this is good because I lost money in eighty seven crash.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Phil invested fifty thousand dollars. It wasn't a small out
for him and his family. What he received in return
was a share certificate. Phil started to get a bad
feeling and wanted to pull out, but that didn't go
down well.
Speaker 7 (10:10):
I read him at Texas said this is not right.
I want my money back. He sort of scoffed and said,
you're getting yourself into I said to Alan, I've got
the secret to levitation, and I'm going to start raising
some money. I'm not going to tell you how it works.
I was that wild, and I don't know whether I
(10:30):
go response back. But I was really niggling him, you know.
I said, if you're going to see me, see me.
I call him every name under the sun. I'm maybe
teen him fifteen email. I was having a couple of
years and I never seen me, so I knew that
something was right.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Anyway, Alan cut Phil off from all communication about Safe
Worlds The only updates he receives now are the ones
sent on by his cousin, a man called Warren Bardon.
Speaker 7 (10:56):
Look, I put too much trust in people. People get convoys,
and they tend to try and spread the demies other people.
And this is great and right than a few other
quite a few Barnas I think might have spread the
word and told people to buy these years. Most people
they approached were farmers or every work is like me.
You know, I'm not a uni personal any but it's
(11:18):
just said. I thought it was a good investment at
the time, but I quickly fed. When I fed out,
I tried to warn people, and certain people said, look,
you know, look that's good. I think some people are
still convinced.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
If this is starting to sound familiar to you, well, yes,
me too. It's just like the enormous success Alan had
in securing investments from sugar farmers in the nineteen eighties
for his film projects, which I found out about an
episode too. It seemed now he turned his attention back
to what had worked before, just for a different project,
(11:51):
different location, different decade. What was especially different this time
was that all of these people in Geraldton needed a
little more convincing. Soon Alan was jetting in and out
of the town, himself a shepherd, making sure his flock
stayed on the right path. It's safe to say Phil
is not Alan's biggest fan, as Nina and I discover
(12:13):
when she asks him what he'd say.
Speaker 8 (12:16):
If you had to describe Metcalf in five words, A.
Speaker 7 (12:20):
Big poppers person spoke the andietype of thing just a
few words, A convent desateful, a conment. How could you
do it? That's not's sorry.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
After speaking to Phil, I now want to go to
Geryalton and find out more. The missing money is proving elusive,
and so far it's harder to get a solid grasp
on it than I'd hoped. But maybe a trip to
the place at the center of it all will change that.
So the next morning, Nina and I begin the long
drive out of Perth and on to Geralton. In twenty
(12:57):
twenty three, a company named Avenue Perth studied thirty cities
in Australia to determine the most livable and least livable
town in the country based on the safety index from
the average cost of living, number of banks, and number
of restaurants. Geraldton took out the non coveted title of
least livable town in the country. A glance at the
(13:19):
crime statistics and the reviews left on local hotels doesn't
paint the brightest picture. Many people online suggested sleeping with
a chair against the motel room door.
Speaker 8 (13:30):
So here was my question. As we drive into Jerylton. Oh,
we just walked Welcome to Geraldton. So we've just driven
into Jerylton. So my question was you I have the
impression that you're a bit of a type A personality.
What do you think about that?
Speaker 1 (13:49):
I am a self confessed type A person Me and
my roommate both agree on that.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
On that note, and very driven.
Speaker 8 (13:57):
So what happens if you can't find the money?
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I've tried everything I can think of outside of getting
court ordered documents, but at this point, a lot of
what I know about the money is just a lot
of conjecture from people who have theories that could range
anywhere from very plausible to very implausible.
Speaker 8 (14:19):
Okay, so that's a very type bay answer. Emotionally, how
do you feel about if you can't find the money?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Well, I will feel like I've failed a bit in
a way because I have told people that I am
tracking the money. That's why I'm doing this podcast because
I'm trying to find their money. So I feel like
I'm not going to be able to tell them at
the end of it, I know where your money went,
not even that I wasn't able to find it.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I just don't know where it was spent.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
So that will be a bit of a shame if.
Speaker 8 (14:53):
I can't find it, because that's taking on a lot
of pressure. That's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Well, yeah, people reached out to me saying can you
do something? Can you kind of raise some awareness about
this and try to tell me where my money went?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
And so far don't have an answer. I have a
lot of theories.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
And hopefully we confirm some of them up and we
can cross some of them out as what's happened body?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
What do you think that you What do you think
when you kind of.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Set out to answer a question in a story and
you get to this point where it's not looking like
you can you have a kind of solid answer on it.
Speaker 8 (15:32):
I think the journey is the journeys as an answer,
here's the non type a response.
Speaker 9 (15:38):
What's the expression The journey beats the destination?
Speaker 8 (15:43):
Maybe the money was the friends we made along the way.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
After a long drive five and a bit hours, we
arrive our dead Huntsmand greets me on the welcome out
of my motel room. Next time I notice it the
spiders not so dead. Body has moved slightly. The area
looks like any other quiet coastal town, long stretches of road,
drought plagued patches of grass, and plenty of fly in
(16:11):
fly out miners around the place, driving up the price
of coffee.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Do you want to get something?
Speaker 5 (16:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (16:20):
How do you think we're going about blending in?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
We are not doing great. Nina's big microphone stands out
on the bright and sunny foreshore. It's hard to see
Allan's vision to turn this place into a virtual village,
but maybe the people that live here have another view
on things. We ask a couple of ladies walking by
if they think Geralton could be Australia's Silicon Valley.
Speaker 9 (16:42):
Don't know anything about it?
Speaker 10 (16:45):
Is it a mine?
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I see? Silicon Valley is like this really innovative place
in America where all their startups begin, Like Google all
kind of started from Silicon Valley, so it's kind of
seen as this really entrepreneurial.
Speaker 8 (16:58):
Place to be technology.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yeah, a real tech take your own place. Why wouldn't
you go to Perth for that?
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Or are you look they're looking for.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Somewhere different to Perth or yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 10 (17:08):
We're the biggest regional town normal.
Speaker 7 (17:11):
Per But so you don't think that would be a
good idea.
Speaker 11 (17:16):
I just feel like during lax a little bit.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
So if Geraldon was never going to cut it as
a tech center, why would Allan be so interested in
the town? A local couple fills us.
Speaker 11 (17:28):
In Mainly because there are people with money and sometimes
you have limited ideas if you don't have a financial advisor,
you just think, oh wow, that sounds great, that sounds
like it could work, but maybe they don't do the research.
So because there is some money here, because we've got
the farming, Yeah, we've got the farming. We've got also
(17:51):
the gray fish industry, there are people with money here,
and if you're wanting to grow your money and invest
I'd say that would probably be the reasons maybe the
reasons why. And it's a remoteness from the city as well.
And there is also a little bit of a small town,
small community mentality too, so you tend to trust people
(18:12):
that comes into town.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
There are many investors in town, but not many willing
to talk to us. Some are still true believers in
Allan's vision and others just don't want to think about
Safe World ever.
Speaker 6 (18:24):
Again.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
One man is open to a visit, though, Warren Bardon,
a distant cousin of Phil who we'd met in Perth.
Warren has lived in geraldon his whole life, and you
can tell because he wasn't breaking a sweat in the
non air conditioned house we met him in even though
the mercury was topping forty four degrees. Warren, his brother
and his dad invested in the Safe World's program through
(18:48):
Rod McKay, who Phil also mentioned. Unlike Phil, Warren didn't
know Rod beforehand.
Speaker 6 (18:55):
He was sort of the main player in West Australia Safeworlds.
My brother was. He liked the idea and everyone he
spoke to one of the pieces of the.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Safewelds and you wanted a piece of it as well. Yeah,
so what did they say to you? What did you
think it was that made you want a piece of it?
Speaker 6 (19:12):
Well, mainly pushing the idea that it's a lot better
than Google and it'll overtake Google. We will finish up
having its own banking systems and all sorts like that.
We were told Alan when he come across here. He
said that basically Google at the time was worth ran
about thousand dollars a year, and everybody sort of said, wow,
(19:33):
it's worth checking some money out. So everyone sort of
just jumped on board with it.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
When Alan flew into Geraldton and held a meeting for
potential investors in town, Warren went along. He can't remember
when it was, though he did start investing in two
thousand and nine.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Where was the meeting? Was it in a kind of
town hall or.
Speaker 6 (19:53):
Down the Ocean center down there? The conference room there,
and we might ed to check that out in the
middle of town there.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
And were there many people? How many people?
Speaker 6 (20:02):
In thirty or forty?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
There was he showing you anything, showcasing anything.
Speaker 6 (20:06):
I remember he did try to shower something on the computer,
but he couldn't get it sort of work, and probably
can sort of blame Telta or something that anyway, So
he just kept talking about how great it was.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Even with the text crew up. Warren was convinced and
put in some money. The next time Alan came to town,
it was more eventful.
Speaker 6 (20:26):
The second meeting, a couple of people just walked down
the meeting. Really, I remember Alan saying, well, then they
run to walkout if they want to walk out something.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Well, do you know why they walked out?
Speaker 6 (20:37):
I think they thought it wasn't going to happen.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah, well that's kind of pretty like strong reaction to it.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Were you were you tempted to walk out?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
No?
Speaker 6 (20:47):
Not really no, no, yeah, Like I said, he's got
the idea. And when you speak to people like Rod McKay,
well he was actually really on the committee apparently, and
he was on the board or whatever you say. He's
a very honest person. And I heard he put quite
a bit of money in it. And so you work
on trust when you're working with those or meet those
(21:09):
sort of people.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
You know, working on trust. Warren ended up investing big time.
Speaker 6 (21:14):
I think I finished up putting him about twenty twenty
thousand in. I bought shares for me kids, you know,
a couple of thousand shares each, sort of two and
half thousand shares each, just in case it did take
off and it was going to be as good as
what they said, Well, children would have been happy with me.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Later on, doubts slithered into Warren's mind.
Speaker 6 (21:33):
I sort of was wondering myself why he would come
all the way from Queensland to try and raise money
in Drip in Western Australia. It was so good. Should
have been able to raise enough money over in Queensland
and over his coast.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
And he started to notice that Alan was changing the
price of shares.
Speaker 6 (21:52):
The share price has gone up and down all the time,
you know, so when they needed more money, they dropped
the price to shares, gave people a bonus shares if
they can buy a block of fifty thousand shares.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, what do you think about that? Because that sounds
like it's almost.
Speaker 6 (22:09):
I think it's a bit unfair. And the people that
bought in earlier, and the people that bought in for say,
I heard some people paid five dollars a share. I
think it was unfair when he dropped the share plaster
a dollar share, I think it was unfair for those people.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Going through the trail of emails Alan left behind which
investors have sent to me, I learned some people were
sold shares in Safe Worlds for as little as ten cents,
while others had to pay five dollars for the privilege,
and while Alan seemed to change what he was charging
different investors, he continued to drum up money. He was
(22:45):
encouraging Warren's father to lend him a further one hundred
thousand dollars, and he was nagging him while a bond
and family member was in hospital. With concerns mounting, Warren
and his family refused to invest anymore.
Speaker 6 (22:59):
The thing that sort and we didn't even get any
financial reports one to start with it. But there was
no financial reports, What's where the money's gone, What's happened?
Speaker 2 (23:09):
And what was this over the many years that you
were investor.
Speaker 6 (23:12):
There, or from two thousand nine or when it was,
We never received any how the company's going real?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Actually did that kind of raise some alarm bells for you?
Speaker 7 (23:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (23:23):
For sure? For sure. There's another another thing that worried
me when Allen was in drilt and he made a statement,
the company takes a lot of money to keep going.
It's taken two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a months.
He said that in public, and I thought, well, it
can't be possible.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
We spend some time looking through Warren and his late
father's stock certificates. There's dozens of them. He's found them
all and laid them out on his dining room table.
These simple a four pieces of paper are the only
thing Alan gave shareholders as proof they had a stake
in Safe Worlds. For some, it's a reminder that their
(24:01):
involvement wasn't just a bad dream.
Speaker 12 (24:03):
So look at this here it says this share was
made in twenty twelve, and this one was in twenty fourteen,
so in okay, so there was a bit slow for
that year. So twenty twelve, six hundred and thirty eight shares,
and then afterwards it was like less than thirty shares
made in that period of time, but then suddenly it
(24:26):
exploded the following year in twenty fourteen, another like three
hundred shares.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Oh well, look this is share number twelve hundred and
eighty four. It's over one thousand, like maybe not one
thousand people, but over one thousand certificates.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Certificates were issued.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
The more certificates, the more money Alan got. This was
pretty eye opening for me. It's a way I can
figure out how many single investments were made into the
company and how frequently people were investing. War on certificates
are on a piece of paper with a green border
and an image of an E. It says Safe World's
Internet Television, Inc. To the left side at leasts what
(25:05):
number this share certificate is, and on the other side
it states how many shares you're getting for it. Warren
has signed the document I'm describing and bought two thousand shares.
There's an official looking gold seal that sits in between
the signatures of Alan and his wife Mary at the
bottom of the certificate. From speaking to other investors, I
(25:26):
know that one man's name was misspelled on his certificate.
Others waited months and even years to receive their certificate,
and in one case it never arrived. Then I noticed
something alarming.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
What do you think about this on the back? Have
you read this stuff on the back of the share certificate?
Have you ever seen that?
Speaker 7 (25:46):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (25:47):
I've probably read it. But are these shares an issue
in Pennsylvania or somewhere apparently?
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I know that Alan started the business in the US,
but I'm not sure why he would do that when
most of the time he was based in Australia. I
turn over Warren's certificate and there's a disclaimer.
Speaker 13 (26:06):
It reads the securities represented by this certificate have been
acquired for investment and have not been registered under the
Securities Act of nineteen ninety three of the United States
or the securities laws of any state thereof, or any
other nation. These securities may not be sold or transferred
in the absence of such registration or an exemption they're
from under such Act and compliance with any applicable state
(26:28):
of foreign securities laws.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
When I go back, I realized every certificate has this.
It certainly seems like a significant discovery, but maybe this
is all perfectly above board. I'll need to look into
this when I'm back in Sydney. Nina and I leave
Warren's house as the sun sets over Geraldton. It's interesting
(26:52):
how a lot of these people that invested, some of
them are not that upset about it, you know, even
though they invested like twenty five thand dollars. They've just
said we just got back from speaking to Warren barn
and he said that was money.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
You could afford to lose. So these are successful people.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Not everybody has a spare twenty grant drop into a venture.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
That may or may not take off.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Nina, what's your theory and why you think these people
who are obviously quite good at what they do and
are quite successful from a societal perspective, are still kind
of putting money.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
And not doing any of this due diligence that they should.
Speaker 8 (27:25):
Be because they've made their money in a non technology sector.
You know, they've made their money through farming, through property,
through you know, the old school ways that people would
make money. And then you've got this sort of smart
looking dude who seems to know what he's talking about
about technology, and he's saying all these buzzwords like AI, algorithm, Google,
(27:48):
LinkedIn words that like uniquet logic, Yeah, and you can
recognize them as being vaguely towards technology. But if you
don't know anything about technology, you know, you're not going to.
Speaker 7 (27:59):
Know even how to look into that.
Speaker 8 (28:02):
So I think that's the secret is he's finding people
who have goot amounts of money who are interested in
business who he can kind of fool about technology. Yeah,
because a lot of these people, like we spoke to
Phil London, I think, who worked in furniture retail.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Like as a kind of business owner. Then someone else
worked in the health sector. So these are successful people
that you know, their own properties and multiple properties. They
can drop fifty k on a project like this, But
they don't seem to have any of that background, and
they don't really seem to understand what the product is.
They just keep saying to me every person who've asked lately,
(28:41):
I've asked them, what do you think Safe Worlds is?
And they just say it was meant to be.
Speaker 8 (28:45):
Bigger than Google, bigger than Google.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
But when I ask them why, they can't actually explain
to me why, what about it was going to be
bigger than Google? They just keep saying that kind of
Google buzz phrase. Personally, I wouldn't put twenty thousand dollars
into something that was told me bigger than Google, but
I didn't understand what it actually did. But he was
a very good salesman from what I can understand. He
(29:08):
always came in a suit, even in Geraldton, which yesterday
was about forty nine degrees. At Warren Bardon's farm, which
is a little bit further inland, he said it hit
fifty degrees. But Alan metcalf is coming in a suit,
hiring out a conference center, putting out sandwiches, putting out
little finger food like sandwiches. Yeah, and he's there and
(29:28):
he's very convincing, and as one person said to me,
he was speaking like what he had in his hand
was gold, and that was really impressionable on these people.
We leave Allan's Promised Land. The next day, when I'm
back in Sydney, I can barely wait to speak with
an expert about these share certificates.
Speaker 10 (29:51):
My name is Besta and A I am the investments
and portfolio manager at UNSW Founders.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Besta decides which startups the University of New southwayes should
back and which ones they shouldn't. I meet in her
office countless startup founders have no doubt sat in the
same chair I'm perched in, trying to convince her they'll
be the next Steve Jobs. Only I'm here for a
different reason. I show her the Safe World certificate.
Speaker 10 (30:17):
It doesn't sound legitimate at all. It doesn't sound like
they had any of the right legal documents in place.
I mean, these people should have all received like shareholders
agreements and were completely over the process.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
It says it's cocorporated under the laws of Pennsylvania, but
then on the back it says it's not incorporated under
any law.
Speaker 10 (30:37):
I think the disclaimer throws me. I think that's the
main part. Yeah, it's weird, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
BESTA taps away on her laptop and turns it around
so I can see the screen. So you've just pulled
up an example of what a legitimate share certificate looks like.
Just describe to me what you're looking at and how
it's different to that other document I showed you.
Speaker 10 (30:58):
The difference is that it actually says that the company
is incorporated in New South Wales under the Corporation's Act,
so it is registered in Australia, unlike the other one,
than not being registered in the US or anywhere anywhere.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Yeah, so how many pages is this document? At least
thirty pages from the look of it, and this is this.
Speaker 10 (31:19):
Much longer, you know, depending on I guess at what
stage the company is raising capital and how much funding
and how many shareholders coming in. Yeah, but basically these
are all the different rights and how it works. If
a company was to change anything in their shareholding.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
And these people just direct transferred to him and got
their shares to forget two months later or never, So what.
Speaker 7 (31:42):
Do you think about that?
Speaker 10 (31:44):
Maybe they're not actually shareholders, like maybe they just took
their money.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
I've been trying to figure that out, and I thought
Geraldon might have the answer. Although I had to return
home mostly empty handed, I feel close defining the money
and understanding the man who took it, and more inspired
to do so. For the record, while I didn't see
Geraldton as Australia's Silicon Valley, the scenery was beautiful and
(32:12):
the people were kind and welcoming, I don't think it
lived up to the least Livable City title. My biggest
takeaway from the trip is that the key to gaining
followers to your cause is to have a true believer
by your side, a man of the people who can
proselytize on your behalf. That man, for Alan was Rod McKay.
While I tried many times to have a chat with Rod,
(32:34):
my attempts were futile until finally I got this short response.
A voice actor is reading it out.
Speaker 14 (32:42):
What is your agenda with Safe Worlds and or what
are you trying to achieve? Any suggestions that safe world
is a scam are misleading. Proof of this is the
review of the software by a leading academic INAI I.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Tell him I'm looking for the missing money. There are
no more messages from him. Rod was Allen's most devoted disciple.
But as I would soon discover cracks were appearing in
his faith, he would turn on the man he most respected,
and he would go on to become the biggest enemy
of safe worlds, a judas in the eyes of the Metcalfs.
Speaker 14 (33:18):
The time for delusion is over. You have overseen the
demise of a fifty million dollar company made up predominantly
of mum and dad investors.
Speaker 9 (33:27):
Clayton, I pledge we commit to commercialize this technology and
take it to the world to fulfill his dream. I
know that this sounds impossible, but Jesus said, with men,
it's impossible, but not with God. For with God all
things are possible.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
We are as anxious as all shareholders are to see
this matter concluded soon, and on the best of terms,
I am doing everything I can to achieve this.
Speaker 7 (33:55):
Look after yourself and your shareholders who have committed themselves
to you and your hospital ideas.
Speaker 14 (34:01):
Keep them close, as they are the only real thing
in this whole sorry affair.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
That's next time on the Missing forty nine million. Thanks
for listening. A new episode is coming out weekly. Wherever
you get your podcasts, make sure you subscribe so you
don't miss an episode, head to news dot com dot
(34:27):
Au to read more of my reporting on this story.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Do you know more?
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Get in touch through our dedicated tip inbox Missing Millions
at news dot com dot au or contact me directly
on Alex dot Turner, Dash Cohen at news dot com
dodau or look me up on Twitter to get my details.
I'm your host, Alex Turner Cohen. Nina Young is the
executive producer, sound design and editing by Tiffany Dimack. Our
(34:52):
editorial director is Dan Box. Grant McAvaney is our legal advisor,
and Kerrie Warren is the editor of News dot com
dood AU. Special thanks to our voice actors Jack Evans
and John ty Burton.
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