Fraudster who ripped off thousands and thousands fights for freedom | USAEMALL.com

A Ponzi scheme fraudster who swindled millions of dollars from would-be investors is appealing his convictions and sentence after being jailed for more than a decade.

Chris Marco was found guilty of 43 fraud charges in September after illegally accepting more than $34 million from six victims to whom he promised healthy returns from investment schemes that did not exist.

The 67-year-old was sentenced in Western Australia’s Supreme Court in October to 14 years’ imprisonment, eligible for parole after 12 years.

Marco wants the 43 guilty verdicts quashed, saying the convictions were unreasonable and can’t be supported.

He also believes his sentence was excessive and that the judge erred when punishing him because she found that he knew his investment schemes were dodgy.

The notice of appeal also said Justice Natalie Whitby falsely determined that Marco’s victims fell prey to his lies when they transferred their money to him.

A different sentence should have been imposed, the document said.

All up, Marco accepted $253 million from investors, repaying almost $200 million of it over an almost eight-year period to 2018, before the corporate watchdog caught up with him and he declared bankruptcy.

He invested less than five per cent of the funds and made no profit despite guaranteeing his victims high rates of return from exclusive schemes not available to the public, Justice Whitby said when she sentenced him.

Marco knew what he told his victims was untrue, and he paid returns from their own and other investors’ funds, the court heard.

This was done to enable him to continue his fraudulent scheme.

Marco told his victims he was a successful private investor and that through decades of investing, he had developed relationships that enabled him to gain access to risk-free and exclusive private placement programs, Justice Whitby said.

He also claimed to be a high-wealth businessman who had made large sums of money from investing.

In reality, he was an “unremarkable” country boy who owned and operated 16 businesses, including video shops, laundromats and newspaper rounds, before turning his hand to financial services and fraud.