Speaker 1: Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey. It seems like most
Speaker 1: great tech entrepreneurs have their own story of starting from
Speaker 1: nothing and making it in the bright lights of Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: Alan Metcalf had his own version of Silicon Valley right
Speaker 1: here in Australia. It was a pilgrimage he made to
Speaker 1: create his fortune and transform his.
Speaker 2: Vision into reality.
Speaker 1: Today, my producer Nina Young and I make that same
Speaker 1: journey following in the footprints Alan left behind in the sand.
Speaker 2: Be a triple vit to per.
Speaker 3: Pot Deva Java.
Speaker 1: When you think about tech mechers, quiet coastal towns in
Speaker 1: Western Australia probably don't immediately spring to mind. But for Allan,
Speaker 1: Geraldton and ocean town, with a population of just forty
Speaker 1: thousand people, about a five hour drive from Perth, was
Speaker 1: an absolute gold mine. As he raised funds for sakes,
Speaker 1: four hundred and fifty Geraldon residents contributed about fifteen million dollars.
Speaker 1: Between them, they made up three quarters of Allen's total
Speaker 1: shareholders and a third of the overall seed money. It
Speaker 1: struck me as strange, why this town. I'm Alex Turner Cohen,
Speaker 1: a finance and investigative reporter from news dot com dot
Speaker 1: Au and you're listening to the Missing forty nine million.
Speaker 1: This is episode four, Promised Land.
Speaker 4: It's got a port, it's got railways, it's got two hospitals,
Speaker 4: it's got twenty schools, it's got a university center. It's
Speaker 4: got everything.
Speaker 1: This is Ian Blaney. He was the local state politician
Speaker 1: for the Geralton electorate for thirteen years. Ian lives in
Speaker 1: Perth now, so Nina and I stopped by to visit
Speaker 1: him before we begin our long drive to Geralton. We
Speaker 1: sit in his air conditioned home, a welcome retreat from
Speaker 1: the sweltering forty three degree Perth heat. Ian's term ended
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one, so I thought maybe his constituents
Speaker 1: had complained about Alan over the years. It turns out
Speaker 1: he'd actually met Alan.
Speaker 3: The government had started a program called Royalties for Regions,
Speaker 3: which meant there was more money available for spending in
Speaker 3: the regions, and so I had various people coming in
Speaker 3: with ideas of things that they thought could be potentially
Speaker 3: a Royalties for Regions program. So an MP, if you're
Speaker 3: in government, you tend to get people who've got ideas
Speaker 3: and want money, tend to call in and see you
Speaker 3: quite regularly.
Speaker 1: Alan was one of those people coming into pitch. Ian
Speaker 1: doesn't remember the exact year, but he recalls it was
Speaker 1: early in his term.
Speaker 3: He had quite a good pitch. He could talk quite well.
Speaker 3: I can remember that he had a concept of build
Speaker 3: a virtual village to sort of make more communications in
Speaker 3: the community.
Speaker 1: Ian explained that Alan's plan involved giving everyone in Geralton
Speaker 1: a computer and creating some kind of closed network for
Speaker 1: the town. He wanted to make Geralton a leader in tech.
Speaker 1: It was a bit like his plan to turn Townsville
Speaker 1: into Australia's version of Hollywood in the eighties, which I
Speaker 1: explored in an earlier episode.
Speaker 3: I found it a little bit difficult to be a
Speaker 3: proponent for it because, to be honest, he might have
Speaker 3: said he only wanted a million dollars, but that's even
Speaker 3: a million dollars for governments, not a small amount of money.
Speaker 4: So I just thought, no, this is shonky. I don't
Speaker 4: really want anything to do with it. The whole concept
Speaker 4: I thought was a bit crazy, I suppose, but you know,
Speaker 4: when you meet someone who's a true believer in something
Speaker 4: and there's not a touch of cynicism in there at all,
Speaker 4: and I suppose that's good salespeople are like that. It
Speaker 4: was a bit of the fervor of the converted fanatic
Speaker 4: or something, you know, But I wasn't very receptive.
Speaker 1: Ian was also puzzled by Alan's interest in his town, and.
Speaker 3: He was very strong that Geralden was the right place
Speaker 3: at the right time for it to be tried out
Speaker 3: sort of thing. I don't know why it's settled on Geralton,
Speaker 3: but there must have been a reason.
Speaker 4: Maybe he didn't choose somewhere closer to home because he
Speaker 4: didn't want to be in a place where there was
Speaker 4: a chance people might have known him.
Speaker 3: I suppose.
Speaker 1: As I step back outside and feel myself melting into
Speaker 1: the pavement from the unrelenting heat, I'm a little excited.
Speaker 1: I'm on the other side of the country where the
Speaker 1: bulk of the forty nine million dollars came from. Maybe
Speaker 1: someone knows more about the money, or at least more
Speaker 1: about why Alan had his sights set on Geralton. It's
Speaker 1: time for the next step to speak with some of
Speaker 1: the Geralton investors, or try to. A few of them
Speaker 1: are now living in Perth. They haven't It's been very
Speaker 1: responsive to emails. I just knocked on the door of
Speaker 1: a man who lived in Perth who used to be
Speaker 1: from Geraldton. I know he was involved in the Safe
Speaker 1: Worlds project, and he actually let me into his house
Speaker 1: and he said he didn't want to talk. He's apparently
Speaker 1: dealt with journalists before in another life and doesn't trust us,
Speaker 1: but he was happy for me to lely my details
Speaker 1: in case he did change his mind. And while he
Speaker 1: was in another room looking for a pen and paper,
Speaker 1: his wife came over to me and asked what I
Speaker 1: was doing there and what this was all about, and
Speaker 1: I told her I was a journalist doing a report
Speaker 1: on Safe Worlds, and she immediately rolled her eyes and
Speaker 1: said I knew it was a scam. And then he
Speaker 1: came back out and I left all my details behind it.
Speaker 1: I guess it's up to him if he ever wants
Speaker 1: to get back in touch, but it was just interesting
Speaker 1: to see another tale of the man who's all in
Speaker 1: and the wife who's all out when it comes to
Speaker 1: Safe Worlds. We tried one more Hello you home.
Speaker 5: Okay, it doesn't look like he's here, so I'm just
Speaker 5: going to leave him a note. I haven't got a
Speaker 5: phone number for him that I do have an email address,
Speaker 5: which he hasn't replied to, though it hasn't bounced.
Speaker 1: It turns out this investor no longer lives at the address,
Speaker 1: but the current homeowners pass on my note. He calls
Speaker 1: me on the number I left and agrees to give
Speaker 1: me some comments, provided he stays anonymous. This voice actor
Speaker 1: is reading out what he said during our conversation.
Speaker 6: Alan was a con merchant. He took advantage of what
Speaker 6: was happening in wa. The reason he targeted a lot
Speaker 6: of farmers was the resources burn. It was all a
Speaker 6: big con.
Speaker 1: There was one investor in Perth willing to meet with
Speaker 1: us and tell me more. His name is Phil Bardon,
Speaker 1: only we weren't allowed to go to his house. He
Speaker 1: said his wife has banned all mention of Safe Worlds
Speaker 1: in their home.
Speaker 7: Wilt's never forgiven me, he begout that tonight. It's been
Speaker 7: a real bone of attention ever since I mentioned Safe
Speaker 7: world But I would love to invite you to have place,
Speaker 7: but she's not a happy girl at the moment.
Speaker 1: We record this in my hotel room, with Nina perched
Speaker 1: on the end of the bed holding the microphone. Phil
Speaker 1: grips onto pages and pages of documents and emails he's
Speaker 1: collected over the years, shuffling them as he talks. He
Speaker 1: got into safe worlds in twenty thirteen after a chance
Speaker 1: encounter with an old friend.
Speaker 7: I bumped into Rod McKay told me that you know, look,
Speaker 7: you want to earn some money, and I said yes.
Speaker 7: So I met Rod. And at the time Alan had
Speaker 7: arranged a meeting with a group of scheerholders over here
Speaker 7: in Perth. So I went initially to this yearholder's meeting,
Speaker 7: not knowing what it was about. All I learned at
Speaker 7: the time that he said he had a secret of AI,
Speaker 7: and at that time, back twenty thirteen, really set about
Speaker 7: artificial intelligence. That Ottawa Rod that this company invests money
Speaker 7: now it was going to float in six weeks time.
Speaker 7: He didn't force me, he said, it's going to float
Speaker 7: six weeks time and these year is going to go
Speaker 7: for one dollar of five dollars overnight.
Speaker 2: And can you tell me a.
Speaker 7: Bit about Rod?
Speaker 2: So how did you know Rod? And where was he from?
Speaker 7: I went to the school with Rod in Jeralton many
Speaker 7: years ago, back in the sixties. Lovely guy. We played
Speaker 7: tennis together.
Speaker 1: In addition, to being a lovely tennis player. Rod McKay
Speaker 1: is one of Allen's earliest and most devoted disciples. I
Speaker 1: learned from Phil that Rod is the reason Geraldton turned
Speaker 1: into a Garden of Eden for the Safeworld's project. I'd
Speaker 1: heard rumors about someone who invested more than a million dollars.
Speaker 1: It was nothing more than that a rumor until now.
Speaker 1: The story goes, Alan and Rodd were sitting next to
Speaker 1: each other on a flight and got talking. In emails
Speaker 1: rod scent, which I've obtained, He says he originally owned
Speaker 1: Alan one point five million dollars. Rod was a wheat
Speaker 1: and a sheep farmer and sold these farms when he retired.
Speaker 1: My understanding is that's where the money came from. But
Speaker 1: Alan couldn't pay it back. He convinced Rod to turn
Speaker 1: his loan into one point five million dollars worth of
Speaker 1: safe World shares. Instead, Rod sprouked Safeworlds to people he
Speaker 1: knew in Geraldon, and he knew a lot of people.
Speaker 1: In one email Rod sent, he wrote that he personally
Speaker 1: got four hundred and fifty shareholders on board, bringing in
Speaker 1: fifteen million dollars worth of investment. Phil met Allan for
Speaker 1: the first time thanks to Rod.
Speaker 7: So what the airport and Rod had album there and
Speaker 7: I reduced myself to him, and Rod said Phil gonbia
Speaker 7: an investor, and I said, yes, I am. I hope
Speaker 7: this is good because I lost money in eighty seven crash.
Speaker 1: Phil invested fifty thousand dollars. It wasn't a small out
Speaker 1: for him and his family. What he received in return
Speaker 1: was a share certificate. Phil started to get a bad
Speaker 1: feeling and wanted to pull out, but that didn't go
Speaker 1: down well.
Speaker 7: I read him at Texas said this is not right.
Speaker 7: I want my money back. He sort of scoffed and said,
Speaker 7: you're getting yourself into I said to Alan, I've got
Speaker 7: the secret to levitation, and I'm going to start raising
Speaker 7: some money. I'm not going to tell you how it works.
Speaker 7: I was that wild, and I don't know whether I
Speaker 7: go response back. But I was really niggling him, you know.
Speaker 7: I said, if you're going to see me, see me.
Speaker 7: I call him every name under the sun. I'm maybe
Speaker 7: teen him fifteen email. I was having a couple of
Speaker 7: years and I never seen me, so I knew that
Speaker 7: something was right.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Alan cut Phil off from all communication about Safe
Speaker 1: Worlds The only updates he receives now are the ones
Speaker 1: sent on by his cousin, a man called Warren Bardon.
Speaker 7: Look, I put too much trust in people. People get convoys,
Speaker 7: and they tend to try and spread the demies other people.
Speaker 7: And this is great and right than a few other
Speaker 7: quite a few Barnas I think might have spread the
Speaker 7: word and told people to buy these years. Most people
Speaker 7: they approached were farmers or every work is like me.
Speaker 7: You know, I'm not a uni personal any but it's
Speaker 7: just said. I thought it was a good investment at
Speaker 7: the time, but I quickly fed. When I fed out,
Speaker 7: I tried to warn people, and certain people said, look,
Speaker 7: you know, look that's good. I think some people are
Speaker 7: still convinced.
Speaker 1: If this is starting to sound familiar to you, well, yes,
Speaker 1: me too. It's just like the enormous success Alan had
Speaker 1: in securing investments from sugar farmers in the nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: for his film projects, which I found out about an
Speaker 1: episode too. It seemed now he turned his attention back
Speaker 1: to what had worked before, just for a different project,
Speaker 1: different location, different decade. What was especially different this time
Speaker 1: was that all of these people in Geraldton needed a
Speaker 1: little more convincing. Soon Alan was jetting in and out
Speaker 1: of the town, himself a shepherd, making sure his flock
Speaker 1: stayed on the right path. It's safe to say Phil
Speaker 1: is not Alan's biggest fan, as Nina and I discover
Speaker 1: when she asks him what he'd say.
Speaker 8: If you had to describe Metcalf in five words, A.
Speaker 7: Big poppers person spoke the andietype of thing just a
Speaker 7: few words, A convent desateful, a conment. How could you
Speaker 7: do it? That's not's sorry.
Speaker 1: After speaking to Phil, I now want to go to
Speaker 1: Geryalton and find out more. The missing money is proving elusive,
Speaker 1: and so far it's harder to get a solid grasp
Speaker 1: on it than I'd hoped. But maybe a trip to
Speaker 1: the place at the center of it all will change that.
Speaker 1: So the next morning, Nina and I begin the long
Speaker 1: drive out of Perth and on to Geralton. In twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, a company named Avenue Perth studied thirty cities
Speaker 1: in Australia to determine the most livable and least livable
Speaker 1: town in the country based on the safety index from
Speaker 1: the average cost of living, number of banks, and number
Speaker 1: of restaurants. Geraldton took out the non coveted title of
Speaker 1: least livable town in the country. A glance at the
Speaker 1: crime statistics and the reviews left on local hotels doesn't
Speaker 1: paint the brightest picture. Many people online suggested sleeping with
Speaker 1: a chair against the motel room door.
Speaker 8: So here was my question. As we drive into Jerylton. Oh,
Speaker 8: we just walked Welcome to Geraldton. So we've just driven
Speaker 8: into Jerylton. So my question was you I have the
Speaker 8: impression that you're a bit of a type A personality.
Speaker 8: What do you think about that?
Speaker 1: I am a self confessed type A person Me and
Speaker 1: my roommate both agree on that.
Speaker 2: On that note, and very driven.
Speaker 8: So what happens if you can't find the money?
Speaker 1: I've tried everything I can think of outside of getting
Speaker 1: court ordered documents, but at this point, a lot of
Speaker 1: what I know about the money is just a lot
Speaker 1: of conjecture from people who have theories that could range
Speaker 1: anywhere from very plausible to very implausible.
Speaker 8: Okay, so that's a very type bay answer. Emotionally, how
Speaker 8: do you feel about if you can't find the money?
Speaker 1: Well, I will feel like I've failed a bit in
Speaker 1: a way because I have told people that I am
Speaker 1: tracking the money. That's why I'm doing this podcast because
Speaker 1: I'm trying to find their money. So I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be able to tell them at
Speaker 1: the end of it, I know where your money went,
Speaker 1: not even that I wasn't able to find it.
Speaker 2: I just don't know where it was spent.
Speaker 1: So that will be a bit of a shame if.
Speaker 8: I can't find it, because that's taking on a lot
Speaker 8: of pressure. That's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, people reached out to me saying can you
Speaker 1: do something? Can you kind of raise some awareness about
Speaker 1: this and try to tell me where my money went?
Speaker 2: And so far don't have an answer. I have a
Speaker 2: lot of theories.
Speaker 1: And hopefully we confirm some of them up and we
Speaker 1: can cross some of them out as what's happened body?
Speaker 2: What do you think that you What do you think
Speaker 2: when you kind of.
Speaker 1: Set out to answer a question in a story and
Speaker 1: you get to this point where it's not looking like
Speaker 1: you can you have a kind of solid answer on it.
Speaker 8: I think the journey is the journeys as an answer,
Speaker 8: here's the non type a response.
Speaker 9: What's the expression The journey beats the destination?
Speaker 8: Maybe the money was the friends we made along the way.
Speaker 1: After a long drive five and a bit hours, we
Speaker 1: arrive our dead Huntsmand greets me on the welcome out
Speaker 1: of my motel room. Next time I notice it the
Speaker 1: spiders not so dead. Body has moved slightly. The area
Speaker 1: looks like any other quiet coastal town, long stretches of road,
Speaker 1: drought plagued patches of grass, and plenty of fly in
Speaker 1: fly out miners around the place, driving up the price
Speaker 1: of coffee.
Speaker 2: Do you want to get something?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 8: How do you think we're going about blending in?
Speaker 1: We are not doing great. Nina's big microphone stands out
Speaker 1: on the bright and sunny foreshore. It's hard to see
Speaker 1: Allan's vision to turn this place into a virtual village,
Speaker 1: but maybe the people that live here have another view
Speaker 1: on things. We ask a couple of ladies walking by
Speaker 1: if they think Geralton could be Australia's Silicon Valley.
Speaker 9: Don't know anything about it?
Speaker 10: Is it a mine?
Speaker 1: I see? Silicon Valley is like this really innovative place
Speaker 1: in America where all their startups begin, Like Google all
Speaker 1: kind of started from Silicon Valley, so it's kind of
Speaker 1: seen as this really entrepreneurial.
Speaker 8: Place to be technology.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a real tech take your own place. Why wouldn't
Speaker 1: you go to Perth for that?
Speaker 4: Or are you look they're looking for.
Speaker 2: Somewhere different to Perth or yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 10: We're the biggest regional town normal.
Speaker 7: Per But so you don't think that would be a
Speaker 7: good idea.
Speaker 11: I just feel like during lax a little bit.
Speaker 1: So if Geraldon was never going to cut it as
Speaker 1: a tech center, why would Allan be so interested in
Speaker 1: the town? A local couple fills us.
Speaker 11: In Mainly because there are people with money and sometimes
Speaker 11: you have limited ideas if you don't have a financial advisor,
Speaker 11: you just think, oh wow, that sounds great, that sounds
Speaker 11: like it could work, but maybe they don't do the research.
Speaker 11: So because there is some money here, because we've got
Speaker 11: the farming, Yeah, we've got the farming. We've got also
Speaker 11: the gray fish industry, there are people with money here,
Speaker 11: and if you're wanting to grow your money and invest
Speaker 11: I'd say that would probably be the reasons maybe the
Speaker 11: reasons why. And it's a remoteness from the city as well.
Speaker 11: And there is also a little bit of a small town,
Speaker 11: small community mentality too, so you tend to trust people
Speaker 11: that comes into town.
Speaker 1: There are many investors in town, but not many willing
Speaker 1: to talk to us. Some are still true believers in
Speaker 1: Allan's vision and others just don't want to think about
Speaker 1: Safe World ever.
Speaker 6: Again.
Speaker 1: One man is open to a visit, though, Warren Bardon,
Speaker 1: a distant cousin of Phil who we'd met in Perth.
Speaker 1: Warren has lived in geraldon his whole life, and you
Speaker 1: can tell because he wasn't breaking a sweat in the
Speaker 1: non air conditioned house we met him in even though
Speaker 1: the mercury was topping forty four degrees. Warren, his brother
Speaker 1: and his dad invested in the Safe World's program through
Speaker 1: Rod McKay, who Phil also mentioned. Unlike Phil, Warren didn't
Speaker 1: know Rod beforehand.
Speaker 6: He was sort of the main player in West Australia Safeworlds.
Speaker 6: My brother was. He liked the idea and everyone he
Speaker 6: spoke to one of the pieces of the.
Speaker 1: Safewelds and you wanted a piece of it as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so what did they say to you? What did you
Speaker 1: think it was that made you want a piece of it?
Speaker 6: Well, mainly pushing the idea that it's a lot better
Speaker 6: than Google and it'll overtake Google. We will finish up
Speaker 6: having its own banking systems and all sorts like that.
Speaker 6: We were told Alan when he come across here. He
Speaker 6: said that basically Google at the time was worth ran
Speaker 6: about thousand dollars a year, and everybody sort of said, wow,
Speaker 6: it's worth checking some money out. So everyone sort of
Speaker 6: just jumped on board with it.
Speaker 1: When Alan flew into Geraldton and held a meeting for
Speaker 1: potential investors in town, Warren went along. He can't remember
Speaker 1: when it was, though he did start investing in two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine.
Speaker 2: Where was the meeting? Was it in a kind of
Speaker 2: town hall or.
Speaker 6: Down the Ocean center down there? The conference room there,
Speaker 6: and we might ed to check that out in the
Speaker 6: middle of town there.
Speaker 2: And were there many people? How many people?
Speaker 6: In thirty or forty?
Speaker 2: There was he showing you anything, showcasing anything.
Speaker 6: I remember he did try to shower something on the computer,
Speaker 6: but he couldn't get it sort of work, and probably
Speaker 6: can sort of blame Telta or something that anyway, So
Speaker 6: he just kept talking about how great it was.
Speaker 1: Even with the text crew up. Warren was convinced and
Speaker 1: put in some money. The next time Alan came to town,
Speaker 1: it was more eventful.
Speaker 6: The second meeting, a couple of people just walked down
Speaker 6: the meeting. Really, I remember Alan saying, well, then they
Speaker 6: run to walkout if they want to walk out something.
Speaker 2: Well, do you know why they walked out?
Speaker 6: I think they thought it wasn't going to happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's kind of pretty like strong reaction to it.
Speaker 2: Were you were you tempted to walk out?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 6: Not really no, no, yeah, Like I said, he's got
Speaker 6: the idea. And when you speak to people like Rod McKay,
Speaker 6: well he was actually really on the committee apparently, and
Speaker 6: he was on the board or whatever you say. He's
Speaker 6: a very honest person. And I heard he put quite
Speaker 6: a bit of money in it. And so you work
Speaker 6: on trust when you're working with those or meet those
Speaker 6: sort of people.
Speaker 1: You know, working on trust. Warren ended up investing big time.
Speaker 6: I think I finished up putting him about twenty twenty
Speaker 6: thousand in. I bought shares for me kids, you know,
Speaker 6: a couple of thousand shares each, sort of two and
Speaker 6: half thousand shares each, just in case it did take
Speaker 6: off and it was going to be as good as
Speaker 6: what they said, Well, children would have been happy with me.
Speaker 1: Later on, doubts slithered into Warren's mind.
Speaker 6: I sort of was wondering myself why he would come
Speaker 6: all the way from Queensland to try and raise money
Speaker 6: in Drip in Western Australia. It was so good. Should
Speaker 6: have been able to raise enough money over in Queensland
Speaker 6: and over his coast.
Speaker 1: And he started to notice that Alan was changing the
Speaker 1: price of shares.
Speaker 6: The share price has gone up and down all the time,
Speaker 6: you know, so when they needed more money, they dropped
Speaker 6: the price to shares, gave people a bonus shares if
Speaker 6: they can buy a block of fifty thousand shares.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you think about that? Because that sounds
Speaker 2: like it's almost.
Speaker 6: I think it's a bit unfair. And the people that
Speaker 6: bought in earlier, and the people that bought in for say,
Speaker 6: I heard some people paid five dollars a share. I
Speaker 6: think it was unfair when he dropped the share plaster
Speaker 6: a dollar share, I think it was unfair for those people.
Speaker 1: Going through the trail of emails Alan left behind which
Speaker 1: investors have sent to me, I learned some people were
Speaker 1: sold shares in Safe Worlds for as little as ten cents,
Speaker 1: while others had to pay five dollars for the privilege,
Speaker 1: and while Alan seemed to change what he was charging
Speaker 1: different investors, he continued to drum up money. He was
Speaker 1: encouraging Warren's father to lend him a further one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, and he was nagging him while a bond
Speaker 1: and family member was in hospital. With concerns mounting, Warren
Speaker 1: and his family refused to invest anymore.
Speaker 6: The thing that sort and we didn't even get any
Speaker 6: financial reports one to start with it. But there was
Speaker 6: no financial reports, What's where the money's gone, What's happened?
Speaker 2: And what was this over the many years that you
Speaker 2: were investor.
Speaker 6: There, or from two thousand nine or when it was,
Speaker 6: We never received any how the company's going real?
Speaker 2: Actually did that kind of raise some alarm bells for you?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 6: For sure? For sure. There's another another thing that worried
Speaker 6: me when Allen was in drilt and he made a statement,
Speaker 6: the company takes a lot of money to keep going.
Speaker 6: It's taken two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a months.
Speaker 6: He said that in public, and I thought, well, it
Speaker 6: can't be possible.
Speaker 1: We spend some time looking through Warren and his late
Speaker 1: father's stock certificates. There's dozens of them. He's found them
Speaker 1: all and laid them out on his dining room table.
Speaker 1: These simple a four pieces of paper are the only
Speaker 1: thing Alan gave shareholders as proof they had a stake
Speaker 1: in Safe Worlds. For some, it's a reminder that their
Speaker 1: involvement wasn't just a bad dream.
Speaker 12: So look at this here it says this share was
Speaker 12: made in twenty twelve, and this one was in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 12: so in okay, so there was a bit slow for
Speaker 12: that year. So twenty twelve, six hundred and thirty eight shares,
Speaker 12: and then afterwards it was like less than thirty shares
Speaker 12: made in that period of time, but then suddenly it
Speaker 12: exploded the following year in twenty fourteen, another like three
Speaker 12: hundred shares.
Speaker 1: Oh well, look this is share number twelve hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty four. It's over one thousand, like maybe not one
Speaker 1: thousand people, but over one thousand certificates.
Speaker 2: Certificates were issued.
Speaker 1: The more certificates, the more money Alan got. This was
Speaker 1: pretty eye opening for me. It's a way I can
Speaker 1: figure out how many single investments were made into the
Speaker 1: company and how frequently people were investing. War on certificates
Speaker 1: are on a piece of paper with a green border
Speaker 1: and an image of an E. It says Safe World's
Speaker 1: Internet Television, Inc. To the left side at leasts what
Speaker 1: number this share certificate is, and on the other side
Speaker 1: it states how many shares you're getting for it. Warren
Speaker 1: has signed the document I'm describing and bought two thousand shares.
Speaker 1: There's an official looking gold seal that sits in between
Speaker 1: the signatures of Alan and his wife Mary at the
Speaker 1: bottom of the certificate. From speaking to other investors, I
Speaker 1: know that one man's name was misspelled on his certificate.
Speaker 1: Others waited months and even years to receive their certificate,
Speaker 1: and in one case it never arrived. Then I noticed
Speaker 1: something alarming.
Speaker 2: What do you think about this on the back? Have
Speaker 2: you read this stuff on the back of the share certificate?
Speaker 2: Have you ever seen that?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 6: I've probably read it. But are these shares an issue
Speaker 6: in Pennsylvania or somewhere apparently?
Speaker 1: I know that Alan started the business in the US,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure why he would do that when
Speaker 1: most of the time he was based in Australia. I
Speaker 1: turn over Warren's certificate and there's a disclaimer.
Speaker 13: It reads the securities represented by this certificate have been
Speaker 13: acquired for investment and have not been registered under the
Speaker 13: Securities Act of nineteen ninety three of the United States
Speaker 13: or the securities laws of any state thereof, or any
Speaker 13: other nation. These securities may not be sold or transferred
Speaker 13: in the absence of such registration or an exemption they're
Speaker 13: from under such Act and compliance with any applicable state
Speaker 13: of foreign securities laws.
Speaker 1: When I go back, I realized every certificate has this.
Speaker 1: It certainly seems like a significant discovery, but maybe this
Speaker 1: is all perfectly above board. I'll need to look into
Speaker 1: this when I'm back in Sydney. Nina and I leave
Speaker 1: Warren's house as the sun sets over Geraldton. It's interesting
Speaker 1: how a lot of these people that invested, some of
Speaker 1: them are not that upset about it, you know, even
Speaker 1: though they invested like twenty five thand dollars. They've just
Speaker 1: said we just got back from speaking to Warren barn
Speaker 1: and he said that was money.
Speaker 2: You could afford to lose. So these are successful people.
Speaker 1: Not everybody has a spare twenty grant drop into a venture.
Speaker 2: That may or may not take off.
Speaker 1: Nina, what's your theory and why you think these people
Speaker 1: who are obviously quite good at what they do and
Speaker 1: are quite successful from a societal perspective, are still kind
Speaker 1: of putting money.
Speaker 2: And not doing any of this due diligence that they should.
Speaker 8: Be because they've made their money in a non technology sector.
Speaker 8: You know, they've made their money through farming, through property,
Speaker 8: through you know, the old school ways that people would
Speaker 8: make money. And then you've got this sort of smart
Speaker 8: looking dude who seems to know what he's talking about
Speaker 8: about technology, and he's saying all these buzzwords like AI, algorithm, Google,
Speaker 8: LinkedIn words that like uniquet logic, Yeah, and you can
Speaker 8: recognize them as being vaguely towards technology. But if you
Speaker 8: don't know anything about technology, you know, you're not going to.
Speaker 7: Know even how to look into that.
Speaker 8: So I think that's the secret is he's finding people
Speaker 8: who have goot amounts of money who are interested in
Speaker 8: business who he can kind of fool about technology. Yeah,
Speaker 8: because a lot of these people, like we spoke to
Speaker 8: Phil London, I think, who worked in furniture retail.
Speaker 1: Like as a kind of business owner. Then someone else
Speaker 1: worked in the health sector. So these are successful people
Speaker 1: that you know, their own properties and multiple properties. They
Speaker 1: can drop fifty k on a project like this, But
Speaker 1: they don't seem to have any of that background, and
Speaker 1: they don't really seem to understand what the product is.
Speaker 1: They just keep saying to me every person who've asked lately,
Speaker 1: I've asked them, what do you think Safe Worlds is?
Speaker 1: And they just say it was meant to be.
Speaker 8: Bigger than Google, bigger than Google.
Speaker 1: But when I ask them why, they can't actually explain
Speaker 1: to me why, what about it was going to be
Speaker 1: bigger than Google? They just keep saying that kind of
Speaker 1: Google buzz phrase. Personally, I wouldn't put twenty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: into something that was told me bigger than Google, but
Speaker 1: I didn't understand what it actually did. But he was
Speaker 1: a very good salesman from what I can understand. He
Speaker 1: always came in a suit, even in Geraldton, which yesterday
Speaker 1: was about forty nine degrees. At Warren Bardon's farm, which
Speaker 1: is a little bit further inland, he said it hit
Speaker 1: fifty degrees. But Alan metcalf is coming in a suit,
Speaker 1: hiring out a conference center, putting out sandwiches, putting out
Speaker 1: little finger food like sandwiches. Yeah, and he's there and
Speaker 1: he's very convincing, and as one person said to me,
Speaker 1: he was speaking like what he had in his hand
Speaker 1: was gold, and that was really impressionable on these people.
Speaker 1: We leave Allan's Promised Land. The next day, when I'm
Speaker 1: back in Sydney, I can barely wait to speak with
Speaker 1: an expert about these share certificates.
Speaker 10: My name is Besta and A I am the investments
Speaker 10: and portfolio manager at UNSW Founders.
Speaker 1: Besta decides which startups the University of New southwayes should
Speaker 1: back and which ones they shouldn't. I meet in her
Speaker 1: office countless startup founders have no doubt sat in the
Speaker 1: same chair I'm perched in, trying to convince her they'll
Speaker 1: be the next Steve Jobs. Only I'm here for a
Speaker 1: different reason. I show her the Safe World certificate.
Speaker 10: It doesn't sound legitimate at all. It doesn't sound like
Speaker 10: they had any of the right legal documents in place.
Speaker 10: I mean, these people should have all received like shareholders
Speaker 10: agreements and were completely over the process.
Speaker 1: It says it's cocorporated under the laws of Pennsylvania, but
Speaker 1: then on the back it says it's not incorporated under
Speaker 1: any law.
Speaker 10: I think the disclaimer throws me. I think that's the
Speaker 10: main part. Yeah, it's weird, isn't it.
Speaker 1: BESTA taps away on her laptop and turns it around
Speaker 1: so I can see the screen. So you've just pulled
Speaker 1: up an example of what a legitimate share certificate looks like.
Speaker 1: Just describe to me what you're looking at and how
Speaker 1: it's different to that other document I showed you.
Speaker 10: The difference is that it actually says that the company
Speaker 10: is incorporated in New South Wales under the Corporation's Act,
Speaker 10: so it is registered in Australia, unlike the other one,
Speaker 10: than not being registered in the US or anywhere anywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so how many pages is this document? At least
Speaker 1: thirty pages from the look of it, and this is this.
Speaker 10: Much longer, you know, depending on I guess at what
Speaker 10: stage the company is raising capital and how much funding
Speaker 10: and how many shareholders coming in. Yeah, but basically these
Speaker 10: are all the different rights and how it works. If
Speaker 10: a company was to change anything in their shareholding.
Speaker 1: And these people just direct transferred to him and got
Speaker 1: their shares to forget two months later or never, So what.
Speaker 7: Do you think about that?
Speaker 10: Maybe they're not actually shareholders, like maybe they just took
Speaker 10: their money.
Speaker 1: I've been trying to figure that out, and I thought
Speaker 1: Geraldon might have the answer. Although I had to return
Speaker 1: home mostly empty handed, I feel close defining the money
Speaker 1: and understanding the man who took it, and more inspired
Speaker 1: to do so. For the record, while I didn't see
Speaker 1: Geraldton as Australia's Silicon Valley, the scenery was beautiful and
Speaker 1: the people were kind and welcoming, I don't think it
Speaker 1: lived up to the least Livable City title. My biggest
Speaker 1: takeaway from the trip is that the key to gaining
Speaker 1: followers to your cause is to have a true believer
Speaker 1: by your side, a man of the people who can
Speaker 1: proselytize on your behalf. That man, for Alan was Rod McKay.
Speaker 1: While I tried many times to have a chat with Rod,
Speaker 1: my attempts were futile until finally I got this short response.
Speaker 1: A voice actor is reading it out.
Speaker 14: What is your agenda with Safe Worlds and or what
Speaker 14: are you trying to achieve? Any suggestions that safe world
Speaker 14: is a scam are misleading. Proof of this is the
Speaker 14: review of the software by a leading academic INAI I.
Speaker 1: Tell him I'm looking for the missing money. There are
Speaker 1: no more messages from him. Rod was Allen's most devoted disciple.
Speaker 1: But as I would soon discover cracks were appearing in
Speaker 1: his faith, he would turn on the man he most respected,
Speaker 1: and he would go on to become the biggest enemy
Speaker 1: of safe worlds, a judas in the eyes of the Metcalfs.
Speaker 14: The time for delusion is over. You have overseen the
Speaker 14: demise of a fifty million dollar company made up predominantly
Speaker 14: of mum and dad investors.
Speaker 9: Clayton, I pledge we commit to commercialize this technology and
Speaker 9: take it to the world to fulfill his dream. I
Speaker 9: know that this sounds impossible, but Jesus said, with men,
Speaker 9: it's impossible, but not with God. For with God all
Speaker 9: things are possible.
Speaker 3: We are as anxious as all shareholders are to see
Speaker 3: this matter concluded soon, and on the best of terms,
Speaker 3: I am doing everything I can to achieve this.
Speaker 7: Look after yourself and your shareholders who have committed themselves
Speaker 7: to you and your hospital ideas.
Speaker 14: Keep them close, as they are the only real thing
Speaker 14: in this whole sorry affair.
Speaker 1: That's next time on the Missing forty nine million. Thanks
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