ASIC Sentences Another Ponzi Scheme CEO For 15 Months Imprisonment

Thomas will be barred from running a business for five years.

He was sentenced to 250 hours of community service.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) says that Mark Peter Thomas, the former CEO of van Eyk Research, was given a 15-month jail sentence. He took use of his position to get a financial benefit for himself.

For roughly a month in 2014, Thomas worked as CEO of van Eyk Research subsidiary Blueprint Investment Management Limited. The defendant gave the company advice and helped it decide to put about $5 million into the Wholesale Enhanced Income Fund on its own.

The funds were eventually leased to TAA Melbourne Pty Ltd, which used them to purchase stock in Van Eyk Research, where Thomas also served as an executive. According to the court, the defendant misused his status as CEO by doing this, preventing someone else from taking over Blueprint. The court says that he only did what he did to keep his jobs as Chief Investment Officer at van Eyk Research and as a general director at Blueprint.

ASIC said in a press release that the criminal will be locked up because of an Intensive Correction Order (ICO). It is a two-year jail sentence served in the community under strict supervision. Thomas was also required to do 250 hours of community service. Thomas will be barred from managing a corporation for five years after completing his sentence.

According to ASIC, the court considered mitigating circumstances since the most severe sentence for Thomas's bad conduct is $340,000, five years in jail, or both.

Another Case, Another Week

Thomas' case is one of many that the Australian market watchdog has reported on in recent months. The mastermind of the $180 million FX Ponzi scam pled guilty in an Australian court a week ago. Tony Iervasi, a former Courtenay House Director, is facing up to ten years in jail and an $810,000 fine.

ASIC has already barred Mark Bringans, a former Trade360 employee who served as a responsible manager, for eight years. The regulator determined that his obligations were not being carried out properly.

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