ASIC has permanently banned Skynet Financial Services director Terence Rio Nugara, of Melbourne, Victoria, from providing financial services, for stealing his clients’ retirement funds for his personal use.
ASIC investigations found that Nugara advised his clients to withdraw money from their existing superannuation funds and deposit it into self-managed super funds that he set up. He misled them into believing that the funds would be invested into property developments across Melbourne which would generate significant returns, when in fact, those purported developments did not exist.
At that time, Nugara was the sole director of Skynet Financial Services and was a corporate authorised representative of Financial Services Partners.
Nugara fraudulently obtained a total of $1.6 million from his misdeed, which ASIC found was used for his own purposes, including to pay off his own personal debts.
The corporate watchdog found Nugara’s conduct was “deliberate, repeated, and extended over several years.” Nugara did not respond to the regulator’s concerns.
The ASIC ban permanently prevents Nugara from providing any financial service, controlling an entity that carries on a financial services business, and performing any function involved in carrying on a financial services business.
Nugara has the right to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ASIC’s decision.
Nugara was arrested by Victoria Police in October on 35 counts of obtaining financial advantage by deception and is currently in custody.
