Alleged Ponzi scheme operator faces court (ASIC, 2015)

Judgment entered

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In May 2015 ASIC announced that Adelaide mortgage broker Michael Samra had been charged with 12 counts of deception totalling $12 million over ALC Group, which ASIC alleged was a Ponzi scheme. A later editor's note records that on March 30, 2017 he pleaded guilty to six charges of deception totalling $1.902 million.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

ASIC alleged that Samra induced investors to lend money to ALC Group Pty Ltd on the basis that it would be on-lent short term to builders and developers, with promised returns of up to 30-48% a year; about $66 million passed through the company's account in seven months and most was paid out to investors, and ALC collapsed in 2009 owing about $40 million.

After a committal in December 2015 and a not-guilty plea in January 2016, the editor's note says he pleaded guilty to six charges in March 2017. The record showed the matter as only filed. The charges to which he pleaded are narrower than the original 12.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because ASIC or the sentencing court describes new investors' money being used to pay earlier investors. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Ponzi schemes — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2015-05-26 ASIC media release

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• ASIC media release

The linked release is published by the issuing regulator under its own terms. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.