director faces 21 years jail

SOUND FAMILIAR? When does the former TZ chairman et al face the music?

http://www.smh.com.au/business/wintech-director-faces-21-years-jail-20110113-19pv1.html

WinTech director faces 21 years' jail
Mark Hawthorne
January 14, 2011

WINTECH Group managing director Kim Wong faces criminal charges following a probe into $1.2 million of investor money that went missing from the listed computer-parts company.

Wong, 43, appeared in Melbourne Magistrates Court yesterday and was charged with eight counts of falsifying WinTech's books and one count of providing false information to the Australian Securities Exchange.

If convicted on all charges, Wong faces a maximum prison sentence of 21 years.

Advertisement: Story continues below In early 2009, WinTech raised $2.53 million from a public share issue, and ASIC has been investigating the alleged misappropriation of $1.2 million from that issue.

Central to that Australian Securities and Investments Commission probe is how funds collected under the capital raising were transferred from trust accounts into WinTech's trading account, and then to several private bank accounts.

Investors in WinTech's 2009 capital raising included LaTrobe Street finance company State Securities, which is operated by Tom Karas, a known associate of Mick Gatto and John Khoury.

Mr Karas has since pursued Wong through the courts in an effort to recoup $330,000.

According to ASIC, between February 18 and April 27, 2009, Wong caused false entries to be made in WinTech's books and provided false share transfer forms to WinTech's share registry service provider, Registries Limited. ASIC also alleges Wong gave the ASX a shareholder spreadsheet that contained false entries.

Each charge of falsifying the company's books carries a maximum penalty of $11,000 and up to two years' imprisonment, while the charge of providing false information to the ASX carries a maximum penalty of five years in jail and a fine of up to $22,000.

In June, ASIC obtained court orders preventing Wong, who was born in Vietnam, and his girlfriend, Korean national Yun Jung Choi, from leaving Australia.

After being arrested, Wong was granted bail subject to several conditions. These included providing a surety of $100,000 to the court, that he report twice a week to Kew police station, that he not attend international points of departure, and that he surrender his passport to ASIC.

Wong was yesterday taken into custody pending the posting of that $100,000 surety.

Wong's lawyer, Murray Gerkens of FCG Legal, was unavailable for comment yesterday. He has previously told BusinessDay that his client denies wrongdoing and will challenge any allegations levelled at him by ASIC.