The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has filed four Victorian men, including a former barrister, for money laundering crimes related to moving proceeds from a massive investment fraud to a cryptocurrency exchange.
In a statement released Thursday, ASIC alleged that between January and July 2021, Dimitrios (James) Podaridis, Peter Delis, Basilios (Bill) Froloporos and Harry Tsarichidis helped move funds from fraudulent bond and investment offerings.
“ASIC claims that four people dealt with victim funds that were reckless about whether those funds were criminal proceeds and whether those funds were criminal proceeds,” the regulator said.
Podaridis and Floropoulos deal with the proceeds of crimes that can be prosecuted under several sections of the federal criminal code. Delis faces eight counts of charges, and Tsalikidis has been charged with 12 crimes, including helping others and beating.
The ASIC does not claim that the man manipulated the fraud himself, but the group says it played a key role in handling the victims’ funds. These funds are said to have been transferred from Australian bank accounts to offshore accounts or converted to cryptocurrency.
This case highlights how investment scams sacrifice hundreds of millions of ordinary savings each year with hundreds of millions of savings. To date, Scamwatch has received over 90,000 fraud reports in 2025, representing approximately $98 million in reported losses (Australia’s $147 million). About half of them are involved in investment scams.
In 2024, Australians lost nearly $213 million, or Australians lost $319 million to fraud, with fake investment schemes consistently causing the most damage.
Certain scams in which four men were charged Thursday used fake comparison websites and Facebook ads to seduce the victims. Investors were contacted by phone or email and sent out high-quality, fake prospectus that closely mimics materials from real financial services companies.
The fake products promised a fixed revenue of 4.5% to 9.5% over 1-10 years.
The ASIC did not disclose how much money was said to have been washed in this case, or how many victims were affected, and did not respond to requests from. Decryption For explanation. This issue is scheduled to be mentioned in commitment on October 30th, 2025.
This follows a series of recent enforcement actions by regulators. Among them, Brendangan, the brother of Olympic breakdancer Rachel “Raygan” Gunn, was charged in March with one count of dealing with alleged crimes related to crypto fraud.
ASIC has also warned crypto ATM operators about the increased risk of fraud and money laundering, indicating a wider crackdown as financial crime surges across digital platforms.
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