Director pleads guilty to using $770,000 from fake investment company to buy house

For investment adviser Tania Oakley, success was as simple as knowing how to grab the money floating all around you.

“There are two ways to create wealth – increase the number of strategies you employ, or increase the frequency of those strategies,” reads a quote on the website of Oakley’s website, Fintel Financial Intelligence.

“There is plenty of money floating out there all around you. Knowing how to get hold of it and keep it, could be the beginning of a new life for you.”

Oakley has proved to be something of an expert of knowing how to get hold of other people’s money – last week the Queensland company director pleaded guilty to three criminal charges after admitting she took money from investors and used it to purchase a house.

Oakley, of Noosa in Queensland, was the sole director of Fintel and another company called Tanoak, which was based on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast and purported to be an investment firm with a focus on equity trading.

While Fintel offered trading education, Tanoak raised money from investors based on the Sunshine Coast as well as clients in Brisbane, Canberra and Sydney.

Both companies were placed in the hands of liquidator John Cunningham of Worrell’s in June, following an order from the Supreme Court of Queensland.

Oakley faced court last week, pleading guilty to using $766,900 of investor funds to purchase a house in 2007.

Oakley also admitted issuing false financial statements to 10 investors to cover up trading losses she had accumulated.

ASIC also alleged that between January 2009 and November 2009, Oakley also carried on an investment business without an Australian Financial Services Licence in place.

Oakley will now wait to be sentenced later this year in the Maroochydore District Court.

She faces a maximum penalty of $220,000 or imprisonment for five years, or both, for one count of directly or indirectly gaining an advantage for herself, with the same penalties applying for engaging in dishonest conduct in relation to a financial product or financial service.

She also faces a maximum penalty of $2,200 or imprisonment for up to two years, or both, for one count of carrying on a financial services business without holding an AFS licence.