August 11, 2024 • 41 mins
Alan Metcalfe claimed he was keeping investors’ money in a safe place. The treasure hunt leads to some of the world’s most notorious tax havens and gold that you can’t see or touch.
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 (00:01):
Imagine a digital currency that can be traded throughout the
Internet that was linked to gold. This is what the
digital Gold Bank is all about.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Gold, the glinting promise of treasure that drove people from
all around the country and the world to Australia back
in the eighteen fifties during our gold rush, the influx
of prospectors, helping to shape our country into the multicultural
nation we now know. The precious metal is sometimes tilted
as a recession proof investment, But what Alan metcalf is
(00:35):
talking about in this YouTube video is not physical gold.
It's a digital concept gold that you can't see or touch,
but which can be bought and traded entirely online. More significantly,
this scheme is the first evidence I find of Alan's
money going overseas.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Digital monetization means that through the safe world system, we
can turn products and services into digital currency. Combined digital
monetization with gold, and instantaneously we have a way to
restore and sustain the credibility of the world economy. We
also have a safe haven to hold the retirement savings
(01:16):
of the world.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Everything Alan has just said seems a bit insincere to me,
a bit like fool's gold. He can't have seriously believed
it that his bank was going to single handedly kickstart
the world economy and become a one stop shop for
people to invest their retirement money. But it was becoming
harder to squeeze more money out of investors, so in
(01:39):
twenty fifteen, Alan came up with this wild plan. This
was the latest add on to his original Safe World's concept,
which was already ambitious and confusing enough for investors. Now
Safewolds was going to have its own currency and bank
was called Digital Gold. Alan claimed to have the minus touch.
(02:00):
His Digital Gold Bank would be a safe place for
investors to store their money and watch it prosper, but
it was also a haven of another type, a tax haven.
Alan had started the business sixteen thousand kilometers away at
a place known as the Cayman Islands. I'm Alex Turner Cohen,
a finance and investigative reporter from US dot com dot AU,
(02:23):
and you're listening to the Missing forty nine Million. This
is episode six Safe Haven.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I am in Grand Cayman Island today and have just
taken the first step towards establishing the Digital Gold Bank.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
This is the artificial intelligence program that we've been using
throughout the series to recreate Alan's voice. Ai Allen is
reading out an email that real Alan sent hundreds of
shareholders in April twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Today, I incorporated the Cayman's company Digital Gold Standard. The
company can't be called the Digital Gold Bank until it
acquires a banking license.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I'd vaguely heard of the Cayman Islands before I started
this treasure hunt. It is located in the Caribbean and
as a British overseas territory with a population of about
sixty eight thousand citizens. The Grand Cayman is its biggest island,
and its sanswept beaches and golden sunrises are popular with tourists.
But that's not the main thing the Caymans are known for.
(03:35):
It's heaven for tax dodgers. The Cayman Islands is ranked
as the greatest enabler of corporate tax abuse and topped
the Haven score ranking according to analysis done by campaign
group Tax Justice Network. Allan didn't shy away from its reputation,
though Later in the email, he said.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Why has this new company been incorporated in Grand Cayman
Because it needs to be an international entity that can
operate globally without conflicting taxation interests. This does not mean
that we are seeking to avoid paying taxation. We simply
need to avoid paying double taxation. There is nothing illegal.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
In this move.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
He goes on to say he had legal advice on
the issue. It's taken me ages to work out exactly
what this part of his business was up to. What's
helped is that Allan made several YouTube videos, so I've
pieced some of it together.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Most honest economists today now agree that the world economy's
current woes all started when Richard Nixon removed the Goal
standard in nineteen seventy one. Debt and the systematic destruction
of the world economy has been out of control since
that time. Consequently, people everywhere now live in the hope
(04:55):
of somehow restoring the Goal's standard. Share this hope.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
It sounds sketchy when I look into it, though. Experts
do seem to agree that President Nixon's decision to delink
the US dollar from gold are sho in a new
era of instability. I'm intrigued now, so I mine for
more information. One Safeworld's investor sends me a document titled
Digital Gold Standard investment memorandum. This booklet outlines Alan's plans
(05:25):
for his alternate currency. In it, Alan said he.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Wanted to create a digital economy for the world that
is backed by gold.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
That's Alan's AI voice again. His memorandum to investors.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Continued, we will provide the way to monetize gold and
silver and turn these valuable physical assets into an everyday
common electronic currency. We will also be re establishing the
gold standard that once existed and served the world economy.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
So well, this is all getting a bit weird for me.
People try maraid gold and silver futures all the time,
meaning they already effectively function as an everyday common digital currency.
There was more. His digital gold was going to be
an alternative to PayPal, Alan said, and he even went
a step further and planned to issue his users with
(06:16):
their own gold paid debit card. Alan had a mock
up and everything in the information booklet showing the shiny
debit card he was proposing. He only needed a small amount,
he said, eight million dollars to get his gold bank
off the ground, and gold and silver would be purchased
with any leftover money. The best part, those who had
(06:38):
already invested might be able to convert their shares into
something real for the first time gold.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
We're also aware of the increasing interest among investors to
roll over their existing stock market holdings into gold and
or silver. Converting retirement accounts into gold and or silver
accounts is increasingly popular.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Shares for this digital gold standard were selling for just
zero point zero one CeNSE each. The minimum investment was
two thousand dollars. He was selling them the same way
as Safe World shares, through a bank transfer to a
US or Australian account. Allan said people were already interested
in asking questions.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
If Safe World's TV shares are so valuable, why is
the company selling lots in this offer at such a
low price. Because early stage funding is valuable. Investors who
are prepared to invest at the early stage of business
establishment expect and should get rewarded over and above what
(07:43):
later stage investors receive. The company is exploring the opportunity
to use our superior technology to produce a private and
secure digital wallet to support the goalpaid debit card.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Okay, this part I recognize it sounds like some of
the cryptocurrency schemes that have become huge in recent years.
They're a kind of digital payment system similar to what
Alan is pitching, and since launching, cryptocurrencies have been wildly volatile.
Alan even reference Bitcoin the world's biggest cryptocurrency later on
(08:19):
in the INFOMEMO.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
In an electronic economy, electronic money is required. Because of this,
we now see an increasing number of digital currencies being
created and aggressively promoted to exploit this reality. Among these,
Bitcoin is probably the most well known. The problem with
all the cyber currencies that are currently available is that
(08:42):
they are not universal in nature, They are proprietary, and
in some cases, like Bitcoin, their origin is unknown.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
He's right. Bitcoin's origin is kind of unknown. It was
set up in two thousand and nine by someone calling
themselves to Toshi Nakamoto, only no one really knows who
Nakamoto is. Apart from that, Bitcoin is pretty well established
as a transparent, digital only payment method. Alan seemed to
be proposing an alternative to it.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
When people hear digital gold, especially today, some people think
about bitcoin because it's often referenced as digital gold.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
This is Tommy Honan, an analyst at Australian cryptocurrency exchange
platform swift X. He's from Brisbane and we meet when
he comes to Sydney for a conference. I want to
know what digital gold was. Was it cryptocurrency? Is this
where investors money could have got to I send Tommy
the Digital Gold information memorandum before our face to face interview.
(09:43):
It's almost like a white paper where Alan proposes his
methodology and what problem he's attempting to solve with his
gold bank concept, and something about it instantly strikes Tommy.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
I believe that the project white paper itself lends itself
directly from what a crypto white paper would look like,
our blockchain project would look like.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
The blockchain is central to how cryptocurrency operates. Essentially, it's
a way of recording every transaction anyone makes through crypto.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Blockchain gives us the ultimate transparency. Every transaction that goes
on chain is tracked. It is something that is filed
essentially in a ledger, in a book of transactions that
can be available on chain and visible to everyone at
any time.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Alan's own idea echoed this, as he.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Declared nothing could be more transparent than this.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Tommy also found that Allan's reasoning was quite similar to
the fears that led to the creation of cryptocurrency.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
The world was on fire in terms of global markets.
We just see in the GFC kind of play out
thanks for failing. The Fiat currency system was under a
lot of strain. You know, you would have heard about
bank runs happening across the globe. I know people that
are definitely in that camp where they don't want to
hold money in the banks. At that time, the original
use case was, yeah, we don't trust anyone, so we
want to create our own currency. We're not kind of
(11:00):
self costody it as well, so no one nobody in
the world can get access to my money, and the
banks can collapse, the governments can collapse, but my value
is still safe. So that's where it started. That's not
where we are today.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
And maybe that fear that everything could collapse around you
did make Allen look at gold as a safe investment.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Gold as an investment class is kind of almost prehistoric
for some people. I guess it is an order demographic
type of investment.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
You're saying that the digital version is almost is essentially
like having like a bar of gold kind of at
the bottom of your bed, but it's being held almost
digitally somewhere.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
I mean, yeah, it's it's not great practice told pull
in underneath your bed I like to put but it is.
I guess that's the reality of it.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
So to recap, cryptocurrency started out because its early users
deeply distrusted governments and banks. They wanted to store their
wealth in crypto, safe from the financial woes of the world.
At the time Allan was selling digital gold. Very few
people had even heard of cryptocurrency. One bitcoin was worth
(12:09):
two hundred and fifty US dollars and now it's worth
sixty seven thousand US dollars. There were only five hundred
and fifty digital currencies operating back in twenty fifteen, and
now there's more than three thousand as it's all become
more mainstream.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Absolutely a niche tech that not many of the average
people would have been involved with. In twenty fifteen, the
market was a lot different than how it is today.
Big Kind was worried about two hundred and fifty dollars. Today,
I think at the time of recording it's about sixty
seven thousand US. But there was about five hundred and
fifty digital currencies back in twenty fifteen. There's three thousand
(12:46):
plus today, and the entire crypto market was only worthd
about four billion. I think we're just shy of two
and a half trillion. At the time of recording, it
was a much different world even back in twenty fifteen.
It's less than you know, nine years ago, but it
was a completely different world back then.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
As Tommy was pouring over all the information I'd sent
to him before our chat, he spotted a glaring issue,
a sign that Digital gold Standard had a problem and
was never really going to go anywhere. He brings it
to my attention.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
For our currency to be truly digital, it needs to
be built in the cloud, needs to be built on chain,
needs to be built within a block So I guess
we have no evidence at this point that actually that
project itself was built on chain.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
And while I've looked, I haven't been able to find
any evidence of a blockchain transaction happening through Allen's Digital
gold Standard.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
It is quite an interesting case, and there is question
marks around whether it actually was built on chain or not.
Without that address, it's virtually impossible to find out and
to track where the value was coming from, whether specific
digital gold tokens were being minted or not. That is
almost impossible, like I said, to track until you have
the blockchain that it was potentially built on, if it's
(14:03):
bitcoind if it's ethereum Selana, whatever blockchain it was.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Despite this glaring floor in Allen's vision, Tommy says there
was something to what he was selling. Other cryptocurrencies have
been set up back on the value of gold.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Yes, it was innovative at the time. You fast forward
twenty twenty four, we have projects like this kind of everywhere. Today.
We have tokens that are backed by track the price
of gold, and they're kind of quote unquote derivatives of gold.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I have one final question for Tommy, why would Alan
set this company up in the Cayman Islands.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Cama Islands is seen as one of the most conducive
environments or geographies for innovation. They allow more things to
happen where. Things you can do in the Cayman Islands
you can't do in Australia because the regulations won't potentially
allow you or it hasn't been thought of yet. And
then the tax heaven kind of elements that you've mentioned
as well, cost of business, cost of running businesses in
(14:59):
those areas, they are generally cheaper as well.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
So maybe Allan had something. It wasn't perfect, but it
could have maybe worked.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Maybe.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Despite what Tommy says about the advantages of basing your
business in the Cayman Islands, they're not really renowned for
their transparency. When I look into Digital gold Standard, I
find one reference buried in a one thousand page document
on the Cayman Islands Gazette. Digital gold Standard is listed
alongside thousands of other businesses that the island's regulator struck
(15:32):
off in twenty nineteen because of unpaid administrative fees. I
track down a document that says Digital gold Standard was
registered in twenty fifteen when Alan started sprooking the idea
to investors. Alan's wife, Mary Netcalf, is listed as the
sole remaining director of the business. Digital gold Standard only
(15:52):
had a registered share capital of forty one thousand Cayman
Islands dollars, which is about seventy four thousand Ausie dollars.
Suggests that Allan's lofty goals of raising eight million dollars
didn't happen. This document also confirms that Digital gold Standard
had been shut down in November twenty nineteen. What I
(16:12):
haven't been able to do is track down anyone who
actually invested in this Digital gold scheme. But Warren Bardon,
a Western Australian farmer, comes to the rescue the.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Right further money. He started selling digital gold standardshaws.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
You might remember I spoke to Warren in episode four
when I visited Geraldton. So you bought into this digital goal.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
I didn't go into that.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
I'd put enough into it the Metcalf idea, and I
wasn't going to put any more.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
But Warren's late father, Vaughan did. I didn't even know
for sure that anyone had actually invested in Allan's gold
venture until now. Vaughan Bardon has recently passed away, and
I'm actually speaking to Warren from his father's home as
he's still sorting out his dad's estate, including looking after
all the cattle left behind.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
I think he trusted it a little bit more than me.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Why do you say that he put did you?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, Warren invested twenty thousand dollars, so Vaughan Bardon handed
over more than that. Vaughan did it believing hoping that
his kids, like Warren and his sister his grandkids, would
be set up for life. I know that because he
registered some of the shares in their names. Vaughan Bardon
died still not knowing what had happened to his investment,
(17:29):
the investment he made into both Safe Worlds and Digital
gold Standard. Are you okay with us maybe taking a
few photos of these documents. Up until now, I haven't
actually seen a Digital Gold shareholder certificate, but Warren has
found one among his father's things, Digital gold Standard incorporated
(17:50):
under the laws of the Cayman Islands. It reads it's
the fortieth share certificate that was issued, so at least
thirty nine people invested before Vaughan Bardon. Right at the
top is a dollar sign in a circle that looks
like a weird take on the bitcoin symbol, which is
a bee combined with a dollar sign. I've posted the
certificate up on the news dot com dot a U
(18:11):
website if you want to look for yourself. When my
producer Nina Young sees the piece of paper, her mind
is made up. Now that I've seen a certificate, the
Digital gold doesn't exist.
Speaker 6 (18:23):
Mm.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Looks fake.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
That's the most fake certificate I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
As crazy as all this gold stuff is, there's something
else Alan kept hidden from shareholders over the years. Safe
Wards had also got mixed up with another notorious tax haven,
the British Virgin Islands, also based in the Caribbean. The
(18:50):
Virgin Islands has half the population of the Caymans, and
it's actually ranked as the best tax haven. The Cayman
Islands comes in second and Bermuda comes in third place.
There's a strange correlation between tax havens and beautiful beaches.
I'm not sure why. In twenty eighteen, Alan's investors believed
that they'd found proof of a money trail that ended
(19:12):
at the British Virgin Islands. Years earlier, Alan had registered
two businesses there, IBS BVII Limited and IBS Shareholders Holding colimited.
The IBS part stands for Internet Business Systems, but when
I hear this, I think of another abbreviation for IBS,
irritable bowel syndrome. Perhaps an unfortunate acronym choice there by allan. Anyway,
(19:38):
investors believed their money had been transferred to these companies
in the British Virgin Islands without their knowledge or consent.
Here's an email a group of investors sent to Safforlds
in twenty eighteen. As their outrage grew.
Speaker 7 (19:52):
The shareholders are aware that in twenty ten, a share
exchange of sixty six million, six hundred and seventy four
thousand and twenty three shares took place in the USA.
The shares in Safe World Internet TV, Inc. An unregistered company,
were exchanged for IBS Inc. Shares, a bankrupt company. The
(20:13):
shares exchanged were then transmitted to IBS Shareholdings Co. Limited
of the British Virgin Islands. This transaction is illegitimate and
thus invalid, and.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Going back through my files, I dig out old emails
Allen sent to investors in twenty twelve which support the
idea of a link to the Virgin Islands. He wrote
he'd reached an agreement with investors to transfer their shares
into the IBS business for tax reasons.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
The shares will be held in trust until Safe World's
Television Inc. Is listed and the shares can be sold.
If they were issued now, it is most likely that
the value of the shares would be taxable in the
hands of the recipient. A British Virgin Islands corporate da
has been established.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Could this be it? As Safe World's never went public,
does that mean the shares and therefore the money is
still there in that trust? A literal pot of gold
locked up in a company called IBS, which is registered
in another opaque island, tax haven, on the other side
of the world. This feels like a pretty amazing moment.
(21:26):
But straight away I'm thinking what does this mean for
the six hundred people hoping to see their money again?
Because how are all these Australian shareholders, especially the ones
in places like Garyalton, going to navigate the tricky processes
in the British Virgin Islands to recover their money? And
what if I'm wrong? So I dig deeper. Alan started
(21:47):
IBS BVII Limited in nineteen ninety nine, the same year
he had his epiphany where he discovered the law of
thought buried in the Bible. This seems important because Alan
appears to have kept this company seek it with no
mention to shareholders. He'd already started a business in the
Caribbean Sea years earlier when they were giving him their money.
(22:09):
Another company was then registered in the British Virgin Islands
in twenty twelve, this one called IBS Shareholders Holding Co Limited.
This lines up with when Alan claims to have struck
an agreement with his investors. For a moment, I think
I may have stumbled across the final resting place of
the missing forty nine million. But as I keep skimming
over these documents, I'm disappointed. Both companies were dissolved in
(22:33):
July twenty twenty three by pure coincidence. That was a
week before I first contacted Mary Alan's wife trying to
find out more about him as part of this investigation.
So if there was any money still in those businesses,
where could it have gone. It's not a simple case
of X marking the spot. Unfortunately, the fact he.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
Set up in the British Virgin Islands is interesting to
me because I've traced money to the Camans before and
I had bank records. But when I was comparing, like,
what's the benefit of setting up a company in the
British Version Islands versus the Caymans. British Version Islands, you
don't have to disclose who owns what, and it seemed
(23:16):
like it was a much greater hurdle than even in
the Caymans.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
This is Leah Wheatolta. She's an ex FBI agent turned
private detective. Leah runs her own podcast called Data Sleuth,
where she specializes in following money trails, which is how
I heard about her. She has long dark hair and
glasses and listens patiently as I tell her what I
know about the late Alan Metcalf. The private detective is
(23:41):
right about the hurdles I had to jump over to
find out information, any information at all about companies and
the British Virgin Islands, and why it's so popular for
businessmen and women trying to keep a low profile Without
knowing what the company is. It's impossible to find out
who's behind a business in Theridish Virgin Islands. You can't
(24:02):
just run a director search based on someone's name, something
that I usually rely on for many of my investigations
in Australia. But luckily I know about Alan's two companies.
I managed to find two documents on the companies. Those
are the documents I was looking at earlier. They don't
say who directs these businesses. I'm certain these are Allan's companies,
(24:22):
though they match with the company names shareholders found and
also the US law firm that Alan used sometimes, Dwayne
Morris was listed as being involved in starting the companies.
When I tell Leah, the ex FBI agent, about the
Allan Metcalf case, she tells me.
Speaker 6 (24:39):
This it may even be that he set up businesses
there because it's confidential, but the money isn't necessarily in
the British versions.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
It's like a gut punch after feeling like I was
so close to the end of the rainbow. Now it
seems that was nothing but naive optimism, So the money
might not be there after all, and possibly it never was. Effectively,
I feel like I'm back to square one. Frustrated, I
decide to pick lee as brains on what I should
do next. Where do I start? I've got this, you know,
(25:12):
deceased man with forty nine million dollars to his name,
and a lot of investors who are wondering where the
money's are gone. So where do I start? Where would
you start?
Speaker 6 (25:22):
All of this tracing money typically comes from bank statements,
credit card statements, and so my experience of tracing money
is really broad because it all comes from the same
type of information typically, and it's the same whether it's
in a divorce or some sort of partnership dispute, or
(25:43):
some sort of con artist criminal case, civil case. I
think what makes kind of what you're doing interesting is
that you don't have access to that information. So trace
money in the way that I'm talking about that's what
you would need, some sort of lawsuit from the victims
or a lot enforcement agency. However, all is not lost
(26:03):
because the same thing. You can kind of work these
things backwards. So maybe I'm probably getting ahead of your questions,
but maybe you know you don't have bank statements credit
card statements to work from. But I have thought through
several ways that you can kind of back into that information.
So I realized some of these things may not be
available because it happens so long ago. But I think
(26:24):
it would be really interesting if any of the investors
still have copies of any of the wires or checks
that they wrote to him, and to see if they
got a copy of that canceled check or information from
the bank that might tell you and them where their
money was deposited.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
As Lee is talking, I make a note to follow
up and see if any of the investors I've spoken
to have got this kind of paperwork. I do know
some of the investors still have records of their bank transfer.
When I follow them up, I learned that Alan had
set up two bank accounts, a Commonwealth Bank account going
to a Brisbane branch and also a City Bank one
(27:04):
in California. For American investors.
Speaker 6 (27:07):
Did he have an office. If he had an office,
did he pay for a lease? If he has a lease,
can you get a copy of that please?
Speaker 2 (27:15):
I keep making notes. Alan briefly had offices in Irvine, California,
but the landlord won't tell me anything. Later I would
have more luck with Alan's Australian landlords. Alan had an
office in the city center of Brisbane. The owner tells me.
Speaker 8 (27:31):
It looks like metcalf Ibs. Safeworld moved into three hundred
and twenty Adelaide Street on the twenty ninth of December
in two thousand and six. They didn't commence paying the
lease until January twenty fifth, two thousand and seven, due
to early access incentive. It was a ten desk private
office with an internal meeting room and reception area. The
(27:52):
contact on a lot of these records is a Michael
bertrand I also found a Mary metcalf working for Safeworld's
Internet television that vacated in around twenty eighteen. I do
have the bond and lease amounts for these tenants, but
due to privacy, we were preferred not to disclose those amounts.
But from what I can see, these were all paid
(28:13):
in full.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
When I look from Michael bertrand online, I find one
that could fit the bill. Investors have been searching for
the accountant of Safe Worlds, wanting to ask this unknown
person some hard questions. Could this be him? When I
reach out, though multiple times, he never gets back to me.
Whoever he is, it doesn't change the fact that Alan's
(28:35):
Brisbane office was in a good location. It was a
big office, enough room for ten people to work in there,
and in an expensive part of the city. The landlord
says the rent was between six thousand to eight thousand
dollars a month. That means Alan paid around eighty four
thousand dollars a year, So for the ten years the
office was rented out, it would have totaled something close
(28:57):
to a million dollars. Now, that would count for some
of the money Alan's investors put into the business, but
not the whole forty nine million dollars, not by a
long shot. As I feel Leah in on everything I know,
she points something else.
Speaker 6 (29:12):
Out Pennsylvania, where his business was registered in the States.
It is a state that is very favorable to like
privacy and things like that. Interesting proof that you are
still in business. A lot of times people will set
up companies in Delaware, and I believe Nevada maybe as well,
(29:34):
because they will also have some of those like really
protective you know, you can't find out as much information
about it. So again it's just like another why set
up there, especially if you're not from there. It's kind
of an odd place to set something up.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Learning all this makes me wonder. Several people have claimed
that Alan wasn't a fraud, just incombatant and that Safefood
was just mismanaged. From what Leah is saying, though, it
seems like Alan was pretty business savvy, like he knew
exactly what he was doing and then suddenly he died.
After Alan's death, it seems like his plans started to unravel.
(30:14):
His wife, Mary had to make sense of what he
left behind. She was left footing the bill for a
substantial debt. I put in a freedom of information request
to the Fair Work On Budsman, an Australian government department
that deals with workplace disputes. I had no idea what
I would find if anything, but my request strikes gold.
(30:34):
I learned that a full time Safeworlds employee had left
the company but never received their final wages they were
owed forty one thousand dollars. They'd been trying unsuccessfully for
three years to recover their lost money while Mary was
the new boss. In twenty nineteen, they lodged a formal
complaint with the Fair Work On Budsmen. Safeworlds haven't done
(30:56):
a single payment after I left, the worker wrote, please
help me get my unpaid salary. Mary Metcalf told the
Fair Work On Budsman that her company was experiencing cash
flow issues and she was trying to sell Safefworld's assets
to repay them. The matter has since been marked as resolved,
so presumably this person was paid. Remember Rod McKay, the
(31:19):
hardcore investor from Geraldton we heard from in the last
two episodes who recruited four hundred and fifty others from
his hometown and then sent a string of wild emails
casting doubt on the whole Irish deal. This might jog
your memory.
Speaker 9 (31:34):
You have overseen the demise of a fifty million dollar
company made up predominantly of mum and Dad investors.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
He issued the company a new threat, saying if there
was no implementation of a marketing strategy for the sale
of Safe.
Speaker 9 (31:49):
Worlds, a class action may well result.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
At the same time, Charlie Weinbein, an investor from the Netherlands,
was also getting increasingly desperate. He's the one who tipped
me off to this scheme in the first place. He
and his wife put all their spare cash into Safe
Worlds in twenty thirteen. The Dutchman has been trying for
a decade to find out what happened and if you'll
ever see a scent of his missing money. In twenty
(32:14):
twenty two, he decided to engage a lawyer.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
We were having a few beers together with a friend
of mine who is a lawyer, and I explained him
the whole situation with Safe world and I said I
wanted a lawyer to write a letter just to get
more information, because all I wanted to know is where
is the money, where is the investment, and what is
the investment and who are the investors. That's all the
(32:39):
information that I really wanted to note. But the reaction
that I got back was, of course, that there was
no way that I was going to see or hear anything.
I didn't get any direct answer at all, and that
says enough for me. That says enough.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
That's not a good sign This lawyer sent off several
legal letters in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 9 (33:00):
There never has been any proof of investing my client's
money as promised. My client has now come to a
point where he no longer accepts any excuse not to
refund his money. Therefore, I summon you to immediately return
his invested money of fifty two thousand Australian dollars as
otherwise we will have no other choice than to take
you to court.
Speaker 10 (33:18):
Mary replied, this was obviously a startup company with the
hope of early success, but of course without any guarantee.
There never were, nor are there funds set aside to
fulfill such a non existent guarantee.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Lacking the funds, Charlie did not go to court. He
doesn't think he'll be getting his money back, but he's
still fighting. Just a few months after his legal bid
failed and he received this response from Mary, Charlie reached
out to me to see if I could help him.
I met Mary Metcalf at her house in the Flesh
last episode. But after everything I've now learned, there's so
(33:54):
much more I want to ask her, so I email
Mary a long list of questions.
Speaker 10 (33:59):
Dear Miss Cohen in addition to your surprise visit to
my home and subsequent email, I must tell you that
I am in no position financially to respond in detail
to your various interrogations. I frankly have no confidence that
the facts will be reported fairly and properly. However, I
(34:19):
do refer you to the details in my previous emails,
the information I gave to ASEIK, and the reports I
try to provide to shareholders regularly. Yours, sincerely, Mary metcalf ps.
There never has been any bank accounts in Cayman or
British Virgin Islands. The suggestion is just not true and
very upsetting.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
I wasn't expecting a thesis in return, but wow, this
response just makes me have more questions. So she says
she's not in a position financially to respond. Does that
mean Mary doesn't have any money at all? Does the
company not have any money? If so, where's the forty
nine million gone? And she says there are no Cayman
(35:01):
or Virgin Island bank accounts. I guess what I've found
proved that the companies were registered there, but not necessarily
that there were bank accounts set up overseas. So doesn't
mean the money isn't there either. When I replied to her,
hoping to at least clarify all of this, she never
gets back to me. It's really frustrating. I feel like
(35:22):
I've just been on a big loop. And while I
have more of an idea of what Allan was up
to after this line of investigation, still no solid lead
and what he did with all the money. Investors occasionally
receive an email from Mary telling them she's still looking
for buyers and that's all they ever hear about Safe Worlds.
The most recent one was in January this year. Michael Blake,
(35:45):
the former footy player who was once one of the
largest supporters of Safe Worlds, gave the business three hundred
thousand dollars of his and his family's fortune. Now he
thinks it will take a miracle to ever see that again.
Speaker 11 (35:58):
I don't know she's trying to sell, or how she's
getting her contacts, or if she's going out to meetings
or whatever. You know, if something happens which will be
way at a left field, in a miracle, it would
be it would be nice.
Speaker 5 (36:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
All these years since Alan first made these grand plans,
Michael is wondering what happened to the secret code he
talked about that was supposed to revolutionize the world and
make all the investors rich in the process. You might
remember him questioning this in the very first episode.
Speaker 11 (36:34):
As far as I understand, he had the algorithm in
a safety secure box or something in the Cayman Islands
that was for the protection of the algorithm, and he
gifted it to charity if something happened to him and
Mary or whatever. He was very protective of it. He
always said if it got in the wrong hand, it
(36:54):
could destroy the world.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Mary strongly denies this, saying that the source code has
never been located in the Cayman Islands. But this seems
to contradict what other investors have heard and what Allan
himself said. Another investor, Phil Bardon, originally from Geraldon but
who's now based in Perth, is also feeling frustrated.
Speaker 5 (37:15):
I don't trust many people nowadays. I don't buy shares either.
There's a lesson that you'll learn.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Phil remembers Alan telling him something interesting at one of
the conferences in Perth, Western Australia.
Speaker 5 (37:26):
At this meeting, people are, I think questions and he
wouldn't answer it. And one stage, I said, okay, if
I went passes, what happens to the secret he's got?
And they were told, I'm a thing by Alan Lloyd's
what that was in a safe somewhere? I see if
he dies tomorrow, what's going to happen all this information?
(37:48):
And I was told that, oh, it's in a safe
in a safe place.
Speaker 10 (37:52):
Did they say where?
Speaker 5 (37:54):
No, didn't say. But it just seems so far fast
that I questioned it, basically only months after I invested
the money, because they were saying it's in a safe place,
and what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (38:08):
A few hours north of Perth in Geralton, Phil's cousin,
Warren Bondon, is also having his own serious doubts.
Speaker 11 (38:16):
Another thing that worried me when Alan was in Drip
and he made a statement that the company takes a
lot of money to kick down. It's taken two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars a month. He said that in public,
and I thought, well, it can't be possible.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Even paying rent and wages. It seems hard to believe
that Safe Words was costing that much a month. But
even if Alan had been spending two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars a month on the business. That's three million
dollars a year. So in the ten years he was
trying to develop the software, that's thirty million dollars, So
(38:52):
still a deficit of at least nineteen million dollars. Where
did the rest of it go? Alan had everything planned out,
registering offshore businesses, navigating tricky, non transparent tax jurisdictions, now
being prime offers real estate in the heart of a
major Australian city. Everything had been thought through, everything except
(39:14):
his succession plans. It got Warren and a few others thinking.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
People said, he's probably over there and enjoying his money,
over in somehwland somewhere.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
To be honest, the first time I heard Warren say this,
I kind of dismissed it. Alan was dead, or at
least he had a funeral. But now, after following the
trail of the missing forty nine million to the British
Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands, I feel like I
know less about it than when I started. I find
myself going back to what Warren said about Alan living
(39:44):
large on an island and asking myself, could it be possible?
Is Alan really still alive? And has he got his
money with him. That's next time on the Missing forty
nine million, that.
Speaker 12 (40:00):
Did right back and said, I hope it's going to
be an open casket, And people are like, that's pretty
heavy thing to say. But now looking back at it,
he probably had every right to ask, because I don't know.
No one knows exactly if he's one hundred percent that
there's no bed, no destiny, you have proven to any
investors anything like that.
Speaker 11 (40:20):
A couple of people just say, are you sure he's dead?
Should we go and dig up the coffin.
Speaker 13 (40:24):
You have to be extremely clever and you have to
have a lot of discipline to be able to fake
your own death, because you know, you've got to cut
everything out of your life, even family. You have to
start again somewhere under a new assumed identity, and once
you do that, there's always a risk.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
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 Au to read more of my reporting on this story.
Do you know more'n touched through our dedicated tip inbox
Missing Millions at news dot com dot Au or contact
(41:06):
me directly on Alex dot Turner, Dash Cohen at news
dot com DoD au, 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 editorial director is Dan Box. Grant
McAvaney is our legal advisor, and Kerry Warren is the
(41:27):
editor of News dot com DODAU. Special thanks to our
voice actors Claudia Popowski, Andrew Backhouse, Tiffany Dimack, John ty Burton,
and James Chunk. And thanks to David Marchant for his
assistance on this investigation.
Imagine a digital currency that can be traded throughout the
Internet that was linked to gold. This is what the
digital Gold Bank is all about.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Gold, the glinting promise of treasure that drove people from
all around the country and the world to Australia back
in the eighteen fifties during our gold rush, the influx
of prospectors, helping to shape our country into the multicultural
nation we now know. The precious metal is sometimes tilted
as a recession proof investment, But what Alan metcalf is
(00:35):
talking about in this YouTube video is not physical gold.
It's a digital concept gold that you can't see or touch,
but which can be bought and traded entirely online. More significantly,
this scheme is the first evidence I find of Alan's
money going overseas.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Digital monetization means that through the safe world system, we
can turn products and services into digital currency. Combined digital
monetization with gold, and instantaneously we have a way to
restore and sustain the credibility of the world economy. We
also have a safe haven to hold the retirement savings
(01:16):
of the world.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Everything Alan has just said seems a bit insincere to me,
a bit like fool's gold. He can't have seriously believed
it that his bank was going to single handedly kickstart
the world economy and become a one stop shop for
people to invest their retirement money. But it was becoming
harder to squeeze more money out of investors, so in
(01:39):
twenty fifteen, Alan came up with this wild plan. This
was the latest add on to his original Safe World's concept,
which was already ambitious and confusing enough for investors. Now
Safewolds was going to have its own currency and bank
was called Digital Gold. Alan claimed to have the minus touch.
(02:00):
His Digital Gold Bank would be a safe place for
investors to store their money and watch it prosper, but
it was also a haven of another type, a tax haven.
Alan had started the business sixteen thousand kilometers away at
a place known as the Cayman Islands. I'm Alex Turner Cohen,
a finance and investigative reporter from US dot com dot AU,
(02:23):
and you're listening to the Missing forty nine Million. This
is episode six Safe Haven.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I am in Grand Cayman Island today and have just
taken the first step towards establishing the Digital Gold Bank.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
This is the artificial intelligence program that we've been using
throughout the series to recreate Alan's voice. Ai Allen is
reading out an email that real Alan sent hundreds of
shareholders in April twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Today, I incorporated the Cayman's company Digital Gold Standard. The
company can't be called the Digital Gold Bank until it
acquires a banking license.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I'd vaguely heard of the Cayman Islands before I started
this treasure hunt. It is located in the Caribbean and
as a British overseas territory with a population of about
sixty eight thousand citizens. The Grand Cayman is its biggest island,
and its sanswept beaches and golden sunrises are popular with tourists.
But that's not the main thing the Caymans are known for.
(03:35):
It's heaven for tax dodgers. The Cayman Islands is ranked
as the greatest enabler of corporate tax abuse and topped
the Haven score ranking according to analysis done by campaign
group Tax Justice Network. Allan didn't shy away from its reputation,
though Later in the email, he said.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Why has this new company been incorporated in Grand Cayman
Because it needs to be an international entity that can
operate globally without conflicting taxation interests. This does not mean
that we are seeking to avoid paying taxation. We simply
need to avoid paying double taxation. There is nothing illegal.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
In this move.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
He goes on to say he had legal advice on
the issue. It's taken me ages to work out exactly
what this part of his business was up to. What's
helped is that Allan made several YouTube videos, so I've
pieced some of it together.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Most honest economists today now agree that the world economy's
current woes all started when Richard Nixon removed the Goal
standard in nineteen seventy one. Debt and the systematic destruction
of the world economy has been out of control since
that time. Consequently, people everywhere now live in the hope
(04:55):
of somehow restoring the Goal's standard. Share this hope.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
It sounds sketchy when I look into it, though. Experts
do seem to agree that President Nixon's decision to delink
the US dollar from gold are sho in a new
era of instability. I'm intrigued now, so I mine for
more information. One Safeworld's investor sends me a document titled
Digital Gold Standard investment memorandum. This booklet outlines Alan's plans
(05:25):
for his alternate currency. In it, Alan said he.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Wanted to create a digital economy for the world that
is backed by gold.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
That's Alan's AI voice again. His memorandum to investors.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Continued, we will provide the way to monetize gold and
silver and turn these valuable physical assets into an everyday
common electronic currency. We will also be re establishing the
gold standard that once existed and served the world economy.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
So well, this is all getting a bit weird for me.
People try maraid gold and silver futures all the time,
meaning they already effectively function as an everyday common digital currency.
There was more. His digital gold was going to be
an alternative to PayPal, Alan said, and he even went
a step further and planned to issue his users with
(06:16):
their own gold paid debit card. Alan had a mock
up and everything in the information booklet showing the shiny
debit card he was proposing. He only needed a small amount,
he said, eight million dollars to get his gold bank
off the ground, and gold and silver would be purchased
with any leftover money. The best part, those who had
(06:38):
already invested might be able to convert their shares into
something real for the first time gold.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
We're also aware of the increasing interest among investors to
roll over their existing stock market holdings into gold and
or silver. Converting retirement accounts into gold and or silver
accounts is increasingly popular.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Shares for this digital gold standard were selling for just
zero point zero one CeNSE each. The minimum investment was
two thousand dollars. He was selling them the same way
as Safe World shares, through a bank transfer to a
US or Australian account. Allan said people were already interested
in asking questions.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
If Safe World's TV shares are so valuable, why is
the company selling lots in this offer at such a
low price. Because early stage funding is valuable. Investors who
are prepared to invest at the early stage of business
establishment expect and should get rewarded over and above what
(07:43):
later stage investors receive. The company is exploring the opportunity
to use our superior technology to produce a private and
secure digital wallet to support the goalpaid debit card.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Okay, this part I recognize it sounds like some of
the cryptocurrency schemes that have become huge in recent years.
They're a kind of digital payment system similar to what
Alan is pitching, and since launching, cryptocurrencies have been wildly volatile.
Alan even reference Bitcoin the world's biggest cryptocurrency later on
(08:19):
in the INFOMEMO.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
In an electronic economy, electronic money is required. Because of this,
we now see an increasing number of digital currencies being
created and aggressively promoted to exploit this reality. Among these,
Bitcoin is probably the most well known. The problem with
all the cyber currencies that are currently available is that
(08:42):
they are not universal in nature, They are proprietary, and
in some cases, like Bitcoin, their origin is unknown.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
He's right. Bitcoin's origin is kind of unknown. It was
set up in two thousand and nine by someone calling
themselves to Toshi Nakamoto, only no one really knows who
Nakamoto is. Apart from that, Bitcoin is pretty well established
as a transparent, digital only payment method. Alan seemed to
be proposing an alternative to it.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
When people hear digital gold, especially today, some people think
about bitcoin because it's often referenced as digital gold.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
This is Tommy Honan, an analyst at Australian cryptocurrency exchange
platform swift X. He's from Brisbane and we meet when
he comes to Sydney for a conference. I want to
know what digital gold was. Was it cryptocurrency? Is this
where investors money could have got to I send Tommy
the Digital Gold information memorandum before our face to face interview.
(09:43):
It's almost like a white paper where Alan proposes his
methodology and what problem he's attempting to solve with his
gold bank concept, and something about it instantly strikes Tommy.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
I believe that the project white paper itself lends itself
directly from what a crypto white paper would look like,
our blockchain project would look like.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
The blockchain is central to how cryptocurrency operates. Essentially, it's
a way of recording every transaction anyone makes through crypto.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Blockchain gives us the ultimate transparency. Every transaction that goes
on chain is tracked. It is something that is filed
essentially in a ledger, in a book of transactions that
can be available on chain and visible to everyone at
any time.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Alan's own idea echoed this, as he.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Declared nothing could be more transparent than this.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Tommy also found that Allan's reasoning was quite similar to
the fears that led to the creation of cryptocurrency.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
The world was on fire in terms of global markets.
We just see in the GFC kind of play out
thanks for failing. The Fiat currency system was under a
lot of strain. You know, you would have heard about
bank runs happening across the globe. I know people that
are definitely in that camp where they don't want to
hold money in the banks. At that time, the original
use case was, yeah, we don't trust anyone, so we
want to create our own currency. We're not kind of
(11:00):
self costody it as well, so no one nobody in
the world can get access to my money, and the
banks can collapse, the governments can collapse, but my value
is still safe. So that's where it started. That's not
where we are today.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
And maybe that fear that everything could collapse around you
did make Allen look at gold as a safe investment.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Gold as an investment class is kind of almost prehistoric
for some people. I guess it is an order demographic
type of investment.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
You're saying that the digital version is almost is essentially
like having like a bar of gold kind of at
the bottom of your bed, but it's being held almost
digitally somewhere.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
I mean, yeah, it's it's not great practice told pull
in underneath your bed I like to put but it is.
I guess that's the reality of it.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
So to recap, cryptocurrency started out because its early users
deeply distrusted governments and banks. They wanted to store their
wealth in crypto, safe from the financial woes of the world.
At the time Allan was selling digital gold. Very few
people had even heard of cryptocurrency. One bitcoin was worth
(12:09):
two hundred and fifty US dollars and now it's worth
sixty seven thousand US dollars. There were only five hundred
and fifty digital currencies operating back in twenty fifteen, and
now there's more than three thousand as it's all become
more mainstream.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Absolutely a niche tech that not many of the average
people would have been involved with. In twenty fifteen, the
market was a lot different than how it is today.
Big Kind was worried about two hundred and fifty dollars. Today,
I think at the time of recording it's about sixty
seven thousand US. But there was about five hundred and
fifty digital currencies back in twenty fifteen. There's three thousand
(12:46):
plus today, and the entire crypto market was only worthd
about four billion. I think we're just shy of two
and a half trillion. At the time of recording, it
was a much different world even back in twenty fifteen.
It's less than you know, nine years ago, but it
was a completely different world back then.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
As Tommy was pouring over all the information I'd sent
to him before our chat, he spotted a glaring issue,
a sign that Digital gold Standard had a problem and
was never really going to go anywhere. He brings it
to my attention.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
For our currency to be truly digital, it needs to
be built in the cloud, needs to be built on chain,
needs to be built within a block So I guess
we have no evidence at this point that actually that
project itself was built on chain.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
And while I've looked, I haven't been able to find
any evidence of a blockchain transaction happening through Allen's Digital
gold Standard.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
It is quite an interesting case, and there is question
marks around whether it actually was built on chain or not.
Without that address, it's virtually impossible to find out and
to track where the value was coming from, whether specific
digital gold tokens were being minted or not. That is
almost impossible, like I said, to track until you have
the blockchain that it was potentially built on, if it's
(14:03):
bitcoind if it's ethereum Selana, whatever blockchain it was.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Despite this glaring floor in Allen's vision, Tommy says there
was something to what he was selling. Other cryptocurrencies have
been set up back on the value of gold.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Yes, it was innovative at the time. You fast forward
twenty twenty four, we have projects like this kind of everywhere. Today.
We have tokens that are backed by track the price
of gold, and they're kind of quote unquote derivatives of gold.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I have one final question for Tommy, why would Alan
set this company up in the Cayman Islands.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Cama Islands is seen as one of the most conducive
environments or geographies for innovation. They allow more things to
happen where. Things you can do in the Cayman Islands
you can't do in Australia because the regulations won't potentially
allow you or it hasn't been thought of yet. And
then the tax heaven kind of elements that you've mentioned
as well, cost of business, cost of running businesses in
(14:59):
those areas, they are generally cheaper as well.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
So maybe Allan had something. It wasn't perfect, but it
could have maybe worked.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Maybe.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Despite what Tommy says about the advantages of basing your
business in the Cayman Islands, they're not really renowned for
their transparency. When I look into Digital gold Standard, I
find one reference buried in a one thousand page document
on the Cayman Islands Gazette. Digital gold Standard is listed
alongside thousands of other businesses that the island's regulator struck
(15:32):
off in twenty nineteen because of unpaid administrative fees. I
track down a document that says Digital gold Standard was
registered in twenty fifteen when Alan started sprooking the idea
to investors. Alan's wife, Mary Netcalf, is listed as the
sole remaining director of the business. Digital gold Standard only
(15:52):
had a registered share capital of forty one thousand Cayman
Islands dollars, which is about seventy four thousand Ausie dollars.
Suggests that Allan's lofty goals of raising eight million dollars
didn't happen. This document also confirms that Digital gold Standard
had been shut down in November twenty nineteen. What I
(16:12):
haven't been able to do is track down anyone who
actually invested in this Digital gold scheme. But Warren Bardon,
a Western Australian farmer, comes to the rescue the.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Right further money. He started selling digital gold standardshaws.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
You might remember I spoke to Warren in episode four
when I visited Geraldton. So you bought into this digital goal.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
I didn't go into that.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
I'd put enough into it the Metcalf idea, and I
wasn't going to put any more.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
But Warren's late father, Vaughan did. I didn't even know
for sure that anyone had actually invested in Allan's gold
venture until now. Vaughan Bardon has recently passed away, and
I'm actually speaking to Warren from his father's home as
he's still sorting out his dad's estate, including looking after
all the cattle left behind.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
I think he trusted it a little bit more than me.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Why do you say that he put did you?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, Warren invested twenty thousand dollars, so Vaughan Bardon handed
over more than that. Vaughan did it believing hoping that
his kids, like Warren and his sister his grandkids, would
be set up for life. I know that because he
registered some of the shares in their names. Vaughan Bardon
died still not knowing what had happened to his investment,
(17:29):
the investment he made into both Safe Worlds and Digital
gold Standard. Are you okay with us maybe taking a
few photos of these documents. Up until now, I haven't
actually seen a Digital Gold shareholder certificate, but Warren has
found one among his father's things, Digital gold Standard incorporated
(17:50):
under the laws of the Cayman Islands. It reads it's
the fortieth share certificate that was issued, so at least
thirty nine people invested before Vaughan Bardon. Right at the
top is a dollar sign in a circle that looks
like a weird take on the bitcoin symbol, which is
a bee combined with a dollar sign. I've posted the
certificate up on the news dot com dot a U
(18:11):
website if you want to look for yourself. When my
producer Nina Young sees the piece of paper, her mind
is made up. Now that I've seen a certificate, the
Digital gold doesn't exist.
Speaker 6 (18:23):
Mm.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Looks fake.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
That's the most fake certificate I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
As crazy as all this gold stuff is, there's something
else Alan kept hidden from shareholders over the years. Safe
Wards had also got mixed up with another notorious tax haven,
the British Virgin Islands, also based in the Caribbean. The
(18:50):
Virgin Islands has half the population of the Caymans, and
it's actually ranked as the best tax haven. The Cayman
Islands comes in second and Bermuda comes in third place.
There's a strange correlation between tax havens and beautiful beaches.
I'm not sure why. In twenty eighteen, Alan's investors believed
that they'd found proof of a money trail that ended
(19:12):
at the British Virgin Islands. Years earlier, Alan had registered
two businesses there, IBS BVII Limited and IBS Shareholders Holding colimited.
The IBS part stands for Internet Business Systems, but when
I hear this, I think of another abbreviation for IBS,
irritable bowel syndrome. Perhaps an unfortunate acronym choice there by allan. Anyway,
(19:38):
investors believed their money had been transferred to these companies
in the British Virgin Islands without their knowledge or consent.
Here's an email a group of investors sent to Safforlds
in twenty eighteen. As their outrage grew.
Speaker 7 (19:52):
The shareholders are aware that in twenty ten, a share
exchange of sixty six million, six hundred and seventy four
thousand and twenty three shares took place in the USA.
The shares in Safe World Internet TV, Inc. An unregistered company,
were exchanged for IBS Inc. Shares, a bankrupt company. The
(20:13):
shares exchanged were then transmitted to IBS Shareholdings Co. Limited
of the British Virgin Islands. This transaction is illegitimate and
thus invalid, and.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Going back through my files, I dig out old emails
Allen sent to investors in twenty twelve which support the
idea of a link to the Virgin Islands. He wrote
he'd reached an agreement with investors to transfer their shares
into the IBS business for tax reasons.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
The shares will be held in trust until Safe World's
Television Inc. Is listed and the shares can be sold.
If they were issued now, it is most likely that
the value of the shares would be taxable in the
hands of the recipient. A British Virgin Islands corporate da
has been established.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Could this be it? As Safe World's never went public,
does that mean the shares and therefore the money is
still there in that trust? A literal pot of gold
locked up in a company called IBS, which is registered
in another opaque island, tax haven, on the other side
of the world. This feels like a pretty amazing moment.
(21:26):
But straight away I'm thinking what does this mean for
the six hundred people hoping to see their money again?
Because how are all these Australian shareholders, especially the ones
in places like Garyalton, going to navigate the tricky processes
in the British Virgin Islands to recover their money? And
what if I'm wrong? So I dig deeper. Alan started
(21:47):
IBS BVII Limited in nineteen ninety nine, the same year
he had his epiphany where he discovered the law of
thought buried in the Bible. This seems important because Alan
appears to have kept this company seek it with no
mention to shareholders. He'd already started a business in the
Caribbean Sea years earlier when they were giving him their money.
(22:09):
Another company was then registered in the British Virgin Islands
in twenty twelve, this one called IBS Shareholders Holding Co Limited.
This lines up with when Alan claims to have struck
an agreement with his investors. For a moment, I think
I may have stumbled across the final resting place of
the missing forty nine million. But as I keep skimming
over these documents, I'm disappointed. Both companies were dissolved in
(22:33):
July twenty twenty three by pure coincidence. That was a
week before I first contacted Mary Alan's wife trying to
find out more about him as part of this investigation.
So if there was any money still in those businesses,
where could it have gone. It's not a simple case
of X marking the spot. Unfortunately, the fact he.
Speaker 6 (22:54):
Set up in the British Virgin Islands is interesting to
me because I've traced money to the Camans before and
I had bank records. But when I was comparing, like,
what's the benefit of setting up a company in the
British Version Islands versus the Caymans. British Version Islands, you
don't have to disclose who owns what, and it seemed
(23:16):
like it was a much greater hurdle than even in
the Caymans.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
This is Leah Wheatolta. She's an ex FBI agent turned
private detective. Leah runs her own podcast called Data Sleuth,
where she specializes in following money trails, which is how
I heard about her. She has long dark hair and
glasses and listens patiently as I tell her what I
know about the late Alan Metcalf. The private detective is
(23:41):
right about the hurdles I had to jump over to
find out information, any information at all about companies and
the British Virgin Islands, and why it's so popular for
businessmen and women trying to keep a low profile Without
knowing what the company is. It's impossible to find out
who's behind a business in Theridish Virgin Islands. You can't
(24:02):
just run a director search based on someone's name, something
that I usually rely on for many of my investigations
in Australia. But luckily I know about Alan's two companies.
I managed to find two documents on the companies. Those
are the documents I was looking at earlier. They don't
say who directs these businesses. I'm certain these are Allan's companies,
(24:22):
though they match with the company names shareholders found and
also the US law firm that Alan used sometimes, Dwayne
Morris was listed as being involved in starting the companies.
When I tell Leah, the ex FBI agent, about the
Allan Metcalf case, she tells me.
Speaker 6 (24:39):
This it may even be that he set up businesses
there because it's confidential, but the money isn't necessarily in
the British versions.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
It's like a gut punch after feeling like I was
so close to the end of the rainbow. Now it
seems that was nothing but naive optimism, So the money
might not be there after all, and possibly it never was. Effectively,
I feel like I'm back to square one. Frustrated, I
decide to pick lee as brains on what I should
do next. Where do I start? I've got this, you know,
(25:12):
deceased man with forty nine million dollars to his name,
and a lot of investors who are wondering where the
money's are gone. So where do I start? Where would
you start?
Speaker 6 (25:22):
All of this tracing money typically comes from bank statements,
credit card statements, and so my experience of tracing money
is really broad because it all comes from the same
type of information typically, and it's the same whether it's
in a divorce or some sort of partnership dispute, or
(25:43):
some sort of con artist criminal case, civil case. I
think what makes kind of what you're doing interesting is
that you don't have access to that information. So trace
money in the way that I'm talking about that's what
you would need, some sort of lawsuit from the victims
or a lot enforcement agency. However, all is not lost
(26:03):
because the same thing. You can kind of work these
things backwards. So maybe I'm probably getting ahead of your questions,
but maybe you know you don't have bank statements credit
card statements to work from. But I have thought through
several ways that you can kind of back into that information.
So I realized some of these things may not be
available because it happens so long ago. But I think
(26:24):
it would be really interesting if any of the investors
still have copies of any of the wires or checks
that they wrote to him, and to see if they
got a copy of that canceled check or information from
the bank that might tell you and them where their
money was deposited.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
As Lee is talking, I make a note to follow
up and see if any of the investors I've spoken
to have got this kind of paperwork. I do know
some of the investors still have records of their bank transfer.
When I follow them up, I learned that Alan had
set up two bank accounts, a Commonwealth Bank account going
to a Brisbane branch and also a City Bank one
(27:04):
in California. For American investors.
Speaker 6 (27:07):
Did he have an office. If he had an office,
did he pay for a lease? If he has a lease,
can you get a copy of that please?
Speaker 2 (27:15):
I keep making notes. Alan briefly had offices in Irvine, California,
but the landlord won't tell me anything. Later I would
have more luck with Alan's Australian landlords. Alan had an
office in the city center of Brisbane. The owner tells me.
Speaker 8 (27:31):
It looks like metcalf Ibs. Safeworld moved into three hundred
and twenty Adelaide Street on the twenty ninth of December
in two thousand and six. They didn't commence paying the
lease until January twenty fifth, two thousand and seven, due
to early access incentive. It was a ten desk private
office with an internal meeting room and reception area. The
(27:52):
contact on a lot of these records is a Michael
bertrand I also found a Mary metcalf working for Safeworld's
Internet television that vacated in around twenty eighteen. I do
have the bond and lease amounts for these tenants, but
due to privacy, we were preferred not to disclose those amounts.
But from what I can see, these were all paid
(28:13):
in full.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
When I look from Michael bertrand online, I find one
that could fit the bill. Investors have been searching for
the accountant of Safe Worlds, wanting to ask this unknown
person some hard questions. Could this be him? When I
reach out, though multiple times, he never gets back to me.
Whoever he is, it doesn't change the fact that Alan's
(28:35):
Brisbane office was in a good location. It was a
big office, enough room for ten people to work in there,
and in an expensive part of the city. The landlord
says the rent was between six thousand to eight thousand
dollars a month. That means Alan paid around eighty four
thousand dollars a year, So for the ten years the
office was rented out, it would have totaled something close
(28:57):
to a million dollars. Now, that would count for some
of the money Alan's investors put into the business, but
not the whole forty nine million dollars, not by a
long shot. As I feel Leah in on everything I know,
she points something else.
Speaker 6 (29:12):
Out Pennsylvania, where his business was registered in the States.
It is a state that is very favorable to like
privacy and things like that. Interesting proof that you are
still in business. A lot of times people will set
up companies in Delaware, and I believe Nevada maybe as well,
(29:34):
because they will also have some of those like really
protective you know, you can't find out as much information
about it. So again it's just like another why set
up there, especially if you're not from there. It's kind
of an odd place to set something up.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Learning all this makes me wonder. Several people have claimed
that Alan wasn't a fraud, just incombatant and that Safefood
was just mismanaged. From what Leah is saying, though, it
seems like Alan was pretty business savvy, like he knew
exactly what he was doing and then suddenly he died.
After Alan's death, it seems like his plans started to unravel.
(30:14):
His wife, Mary had to make sense of what he
left behind. She was left footing the bill for a
substantial debt. I put in a freedom of information request
to the Fair Work On Budsman, an Australian government department
that deals with workplace disputes. I had no idea what
I would find if anything, but my request strikes gold.
(30:34):
I learned that a full time Safeworlds employee had left
the company but never received their final wages they were
owed forty one thousand dollars. They'd been trying unsuccessfully for
three years to recover their lost money while Mary was
the new boss. In twenty nineteen, they lodged a formal
complaint with the Fair Work On Budsmen. Safeworlds haven't done
(30:56):
a single payment after I left, the worker wrote, please
help me get my unpaid salary. Mary Metcalf told the
Fair Work On Budsman that her company was experiencing cash
flow issues and she was trying to sell Safefworld's assets
to repay them. The matter has since been marked as resolved,
so presumably this person was paid. Remember Rod McKay, the
(31:19):
hardcore investor from Geraldton we heard from in the last
two episodes who recruited four hundred and fifty others from
his hometown and then sent a string of wild emails
casting doubt on the whole Irish deal. This might jog
your memory.
Speaker 9 (31:34):
You have overseen the demise of a fifty million dollar
company made up predominantly of mum and Dad investors.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
He issued the company a new threat, saying if there
was no implementation of a marketing strategy for the sale
of Safe.
Speaker 9 (31:49):
Worlds, a class action may well result.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
At the same time, Charlie Weinbein, an investor from the Netherlands,
was also getting increasingly desperate. He's the one who tipped
me off to this scheme in the first place. He
and his wife put all their spare cash into Safe
Worlds in twenty thirteen. The Dutchman has been trying for
a decade to find out what happened and if you'll
ever see a scent of his missing money. In twenty
(32:14):
twenty two, he decided to engage a lawyer.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
We were having a few beers together with a friend
of mine who is a lawyer, and I explained him
the whole situation with Safe world and I said I
wanted a lawyer to write a letter just to get
more information, because all I wanted to know is where
is the money, where is the investment, and what is
the investment and who are the investors. That's all the
(32:39):
information that I really wanted to note. But the reaction
that I got back was, of course, that there was
no way that I was going to see or hear anything.
I didn't get any direct answer at all, and that
says enough for me. That says enough.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
That's not a good sign This lawyer sent off several
legal letters in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 9 (33:00):
There never has been any proof of investing my client's
money as promised. My client has now come to a
point where he no longer accepts any excuse not to
refund his money. Therefore, I summon you to immediately return
his invested money of fifty two thousand Australian dollars as
otherwise we will have no other choice than to take
you to court.
Speaker 10 (33:18):
Mary replied, this was obviously a startup company with the
hope of early success, but of course without any guarantee.
There never were, nor are there funds set aside to
fulfill such a non existent guarantee.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Lacking the funds, Charlie did not go to court. He
doesn't think he'll be getting his money back, but he's
still fighting. Just a few months after his legal bid
failed and he received this response from Mary, Charlie reached
out to me to see if I could help him.
I met Mary Metcalf at her house in the Flesh
last episode. But after everything I've now learned, there's so
(33:54):
much more I want to ask her, so I email
Mary a long list of questions.
Speaker 10 (33:59):
Dear Miss Cohen in addition to your surprise visit to
my home and subsequent email, I must tell you that
I am in no position financially to respond in detail
to your various interrogations. I frankly have no confidence that
the facts will be reported fairly and properly. However, I
(34:19):
do refer you to the details in my previous emails,
the information I gave to ASEIK, and the reports I
try to provide to shareholders regularly. Yours, sincerely, Mary metcalf ps.
There never has been any bank accounts in Cayman or
British Virgin Islands. The suggestion is just not true and
very upsetting.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
I wasn't expecting a thesis in return, but wow, this
response just makes me have more questions. So she says
she's not in a position financially to respond. Does that
mean Mary doesn't have any money at all? Does the
company not have any money? If so, where's the forty
nine million gone? And she says there are no Cayman
(35:01):
or Virgin Island bank accounts. I guess what I've found
proved that the companies were registered there, but not necessarily
that there were bank accounts set up overseas. So doesn't
mean the money isn't there either. When I replied to her,
hoping to at least clarify all of this, she never
gets back to me. It's really frustrating. I feel like
(35:22):
I've just been on a big loop. And while I
have more of an idea of what Allan was up
to after this line of investigation, still no solid lead
and what he did with all the money. Investors occasionally
receive an email from Mary telling them she's still looking
for buyers and that's all they ever hear about Safe Worlds.
The most recent one was in January this year. Michael Blake,
(35:45):
the former footy player who was once one of the
largest supporters of Safe Worlds, gave the business three hundred
thousand dollars of his and his family's fortune. Now he
thinks it will take a miracle to ever see that again.
Speaker 11 (35:58):
I don't know she's trying to sell, or how she's
getting her contacts, or if she's going out to meetings
or whatever. You know, if something happens which will be
way at a left field, in a miracle, it would
be it would be nice.
Speaker 5 (36:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
All these years since Alan first made these grand plans,
Michael is wondering what happened to the secret code he
talked about that was supposed to revolutionize the world and
make all the investors rich in the process. You might
remember him questioning this in the very first episode.
Speaker 11 (36:34):
As far as I understand, he had the algorithm in
a safety secure box or something in the Cayman Islands
that was for the protection of the algorithm, and he
gifted it to charity if something happened to him and
Mary or whatever. He was very protective of it. He
always said if it got in the wrong hand, it
(36:54):
could destroy the world.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Mary strongly denies this, saying that the source code has
never been located in the Cayman Islands. But this seems
to contradict what other investors have heard and what Allan
himself said. Another investor, Phil Bardon, originally from Geraldon but
who's now based in Perth, is also feeling frustrated.
Speaker 5 (37:15):
I don't trust many people nowadays. I don't buy shares either.
There's a lesson that you'll learn.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Phil remembers Alan telling him something interesting at one of
the conferences in Perth, Western Australia.
Speaker 5 (37:26):
At this meeting, people are, I think questions and he
wouldn't answer it. And one stage, I said, okay, if
I went passes, what happens to the secret he's got?
And they were told, I'm a thing by Alan Lloyd's
what that was in a safe somewhere? I see if
he dies tomorrow, what's going to happen all this information?
(37:48):
And I was told that, oh, it's in a safe
in a safe place.
Speaker 10 (37:52):
Did they say where?
Speaker 5 (37:54):
No, didn't say. But it just seems so far fast
that I questioned it, basically only months after I invested
the money, because they were saying it's in a safe place,
and what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (38:08):
A few hours north of Perth in Geralton, Phil's cousin,
Warren Bondon, is also having his own serious doubts.
Speaker 11 (38:16):
Another thing that worried me when Alan was in Drip
and he made a statement that the company takes a
lot of money to kick down. It's taken two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars a month. He said that in public,
and I thought, well, it can't be possible.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Even paying rent and wages. It seems hard to believe
that Safe Words was costing that much a month. But
even if Alan had been spending two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars a month on the business. That's three million
dollars a year. So in the ten years he was
trying to develop the software, that's thirty million dollars, So
(38:52):
still a deficit of at least nineteen million dollars. Where
did the rest of it go? Alan had everything planned out,
registering offshore businesses, navigating tricky, non transparent tax jurisdictions, now
being prime offers real estate in the heart of a
major Australian city. Everything had been thought through, everything except
(39:14):
his succession plans. It got Warren and a few others thinking.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
People said, he's probably over there and enjoying his money,
over in somehwland somewhere.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
To be honest, the first time I heard Warren say this,
I kind of dismissed it. Alan was dead, or at
least he had a funeral. But now, after following the
trail of the missing forty nine million to the British
Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands, I feel like I
know less about it than when I started. I find
myself going back to what Warren said about Alan living
(39:44):
large on an island and asking myself, could it be possible?
Is Alan really still alive? And has he got his
money with him. That's next time on the Missing forty
nine million, that.
Speaker 12 (40:00):
Did right back and said, I hope it's going to
be an open casket, And people are like, that's pretty
heavy thing to say. But now looking back at it,
he probably had every right to ask, because I don't know.
No one knows exactly if he's one hundred percent that
there's no bed, no destiny, you have proven to any
investors anything like that.
Speaker 11 (40:20):
A couple of people just say, are you sure he's dead?
Should we go and dig up the coffin.
Speaker 13 (40:24):
You have to be extremely clever and you have to
have a lot of discipline to be able to fake
your own death, because you know, you've got to cut
everything out of your life, even family. You have to
start again somewhere under a new assumed identity, and once
you do that, there's always a risk.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
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 Au to read more of my reporting on this story.
Do you know more'n touched through our dedicated tip inbox
Missing Millions at news dot com dot Au or contact
(41:06):
me directly on Alex dot Turner, Dash Cohen at news
dot com DoD au, 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 editorial director is Dan Box. Grant
McAvaney is our legal advisor, and Kerry Warren is the
(41:27):
editor of News dot com DODAU. Special thanks to our
voice actors Claudia Popowski, Andrew Backhouse, Tiffany Dimack, John ty Burton,
and James Chunk. And thanks to David Marchant for his
assistance on this investigation.
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