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Speaker 1: We have gathered today to give thanks to God for

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Speaker 1: the life of Alan Miles Metcalf, and to a third

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Speaker 1: a Christian conviction that while death is the end of

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Speaker 1: human life, at marks a new beginning in our relationship

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Speaker 1: with God. Please let us stand together as we see

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Speaker 1: amazing grace.

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Speaker 2: I'm starting this story at the end, the end of

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Speaker 2: Alan Metcalf's life. This is his funeral. It's a Wednesday,

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Speaker 2: the first day of March in twenty seventeen. I'm looking

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Speaker 2: back at this scene immortalized on a YouTube video. It's

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Speaker 2: a video that I've now watched multiple times, and each

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Speaker 2: time I notice other small details. Count forty or so

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Speaker 2: people sitting in the pews of the church. The thirty

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Speaker 2: two degree day is hot, sweltering, and a few of

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Speaker 2: the men have actually taken off their suit jackets. Sad

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Speaker 2: faces stare up as the reverend begins his service. It's

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Speaker 2: just past one pm in a Uniting church in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

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Speaker 2: Alan's widow, Mary Metcalf, takes to the stand to deliver

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Speaker 2: her eulogy. She cuts a striking figure with her larger

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Speaker 2: than life makeup and heavy jewelry, as well as a

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Speaker 2: long black lace veil draped dramatically over her face. Her son, Clayton,

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Speaker 2: towers next to her. Alan's only child, Mary describes her

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Speaker 2: husband as a gift from God.

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Speaker 3: I prayed to God when I was fifteen to send

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Speaker 3: me a husband who would be a kindred spirit, a

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Speaker 3: visionary who would not be afraid. God answered my prayers

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Speaker 3: in abundance to send me Alan Metcalts.

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Speaker 2: Alan was seventy years old and extremely overweight. In the end,

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Speaker 2: he died of a heart attack. He was a seemingly

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Speaker 2: successful businessman on the Gold Coast, a beachside city built

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Speaker 2: around shining skyscrapers. And watching the funeral, it seems like

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Speaker 2: Alan was pretty popular. More than ten people speak and

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Speaker 2: others send video messages from all around the world.

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Speaker 4: My mother told me years ago, Peter, you'll count your

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Speaker 4: genuine friends on one hand. In your lifetime, Alan, you're

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Speaker 4: on my hand.

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Speaker 5: We're not going to mourn him.

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Speaker 6: We're going to celebrate his life, what he did in

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Speaker 6: the world, what they're still going to do in the

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Speaker 6: world because of Alan Metca.

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Speaker 7: I truly believe he was a genius, and I trust

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Speaker 7: the history of books will prove out.

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Speaker 4: To be the case.

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Speaker 2: Only that's not quite the story I find when I

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Speaker 2: pick up those history books seven years later and learn

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Speaker 2: about Alan Metcalf for myself. The words I'm hearing now

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Speaker 2: to describe him are very very different.

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Speaker 5: Deceitful, a conment.

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Speaker 4: He was a scammer and a lunatic in a way.

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Speaker 5: He struck me as being the kind of guy could

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Speaker 5: sell ice to the Esquimos, but you just wondered what

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Speaker 5: was the ice made of?

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Speaker 2: Depending on who you asked, Alan was a visionary or

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Speaker 2: a thief, a genius, or a fool who believed his

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Speaker 2: own fantasies. Now six hundred people are wondering which it was,

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Speaker 2: after putting their money, in some cases their life savings

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Speaker 2: into a scheme that Alan was running. Alan claimed he'd

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Speaker 2: found the secret to artificial intelligence in the Bible. He

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Speaker 2: told the world his company would be bigger than Google.

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Speaker 2: He was a messiah to his devout followers, able to

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Speaker 2: lead them to a promised land free from ever having

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Speaker 2: to work again, and guaranteed them with almost religious conviction,

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Speaker 2: truly biblical returns.

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Speaker 8: Welcome to see World's TV. Just like magic, I'm going

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Speaker 8: to show you the easiest way to make money online.

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Speaker 8: So what is safe World's TV. It's more than just

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Speaker 8: a website and more than just a software application. It's

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Speaker 8: the world's first Internet television and e business platform.

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Speaker 2: Alan's investors were ordinary people, entire families, friend groups, pensioners,

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Speaker 2: people from all over the world. They believed in Alan.

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Speaker 2: They believed they were going to get their money to

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Speaker 2: pay for their retirements, or their kids' educations, or the

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Speaker 2: holiday of lifetime. Until suddenly Alan died. Those investors were

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Speaker 2: left asking what happened to their money, all forty nine

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Speaker 2: million dollars of it. I'll never meet him. He died

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Speaker 2: before I was even a working journalist, but he's consumed

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Speaker 2: my every spare thought. For the past year. The money

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Speaker 2: has gone missing. No one seems to know where it is,

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Speaker 2: and I'm setting up to find it. I'm Alex Turner Cohen,

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Speaker 2: a finance and investigative reporter from news dot Commeddy you

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Speaker 2: and you're listening to the Missing forty nine million. This

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Speaker 2: is episode one Judgment Day.

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Speaker 7: Hello. I'm Alan Metcalf. In nineteen ninety nine, I was

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Speaker 7: fortunate enough to make the breakthrough discovery of the law

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Speaker 7: of thought that in the IT world is called universal logic.

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Speaker 7: Much to the surprise and disbelief of many people. I

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Speaker 7: found the law of thought in the Bible. We have

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Speaker 7: used the law of thought to develop what we believe

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Speaker 7: is the world's first artificially intelligent, mass distributable Internet robot

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Speaker 7: for television and electronic business.

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Speaker 2: The voice you're hearing there is Alan Metcalf. He might

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Speaker 2: be dead, but Alan lives on in numerous YouTube clips,

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Speaker 2: A ghost in the machine. Let's go back to the

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Speaker 2: email which started me on the search for Allan's missing money.

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Speaker 9: Hi, my name is Charlie Waynepin. I'm a resident of

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Speaker 9: the Netherlands that I'm writing about a financial investment that

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Speaker 9: I made in Australia back in December twenty thirteen. I

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Speaker 9: was informed that you're a journalist that writes sharp articles

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Speaker 9: concerning financial issues, including fraud. Therefore, I hope that you're

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Speaker 9: the right person that I can refer to for this matter.

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Speaker 2: This is Charlie reading from his email. He explained that

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Speaker 2: he'd invested tens of thousands of dollars into a scheme

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Speaker 2: called Safe Worlds, as had many other Australians, and that

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Speaker 2: the founder of the scheme was now dead.

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Speaker 9: Please let me know if this is something that you

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Speaker 9: would be willing to work on and if you can,

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Speaker 9: I will be very high happy to send you my

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Speaker 9: correspondence that I had for this project. Thank you in

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Speaker 9: advance for your consideration, looking forward hearing from you.

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Speaker 10: When did this come in April? Didn't it?

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Speaker 2: It's been almost a year to the day. Actually, I

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Speaker 2: never would have imagined from that one email. This is

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Speaker 2: me talking to my boss, Sarah Sharples, the finance editor

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Speaker 2: at news dot com TODAU. She's the one that actually

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Speaker 2: first received that email from Charlie. Tell us about what

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Speaker 2: was happening that day When the email came in. What

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Speaker 2: did you think?

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Speaker 3: You know?

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Speaker 2: It was a tip off? You receive a lot of

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Speaker 2: tip offs. Was there anything about this one that stood out?

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Speaker 2: What do you remember now given how much ended up

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Speaker 2: coming out of this one email.

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Speaker 10: Yeah, we do get a lot of tip offs, which

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Speaker 10: is where some of the best stories come from. I

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Speaker 10: remember receiving this email and he said he'd invested in

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Speaker 10: this company back in twenty thirteen, and he'd invested fifty

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Speaker 10: two thousand, which is a lot of money. And it

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Speaker 10: got really intriguing as well because the email talked about

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Speaker 10: what he'd been sold to invest in was a company

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Speaker 10: that was going to surpass Google and YouTube, so obviously

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Speaker 10: they're big players now. And then ten years later he

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Speaker 10: still hadn't seen any of his money or any return

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Speaker 10: on it. He'd been chasing it for ten years. The

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Speaker 10: founder had died, but the wife had taken over it,

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Speaker 10: which was a bit weird because, like he said, they

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Speaker 10: had no idea what her experience was.

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Speaker 2: And then what what did you do next?

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Speaker 10: I have to admit I read it and I filed

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Speaker 10: it away as something we needed to follow up, and

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Speaker 10: then we get so busy I forgot about it. And

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Speaker 10: he actually emailed me again and asked me if I

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Speaker 10: was interested and if not, should he take it elsewhere?

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Speaker 10: And I think that was a good tactic from him,

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Speaker 10: because I was like, oh, no, we're interested. And at

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Speaker 10: the time I was going on some extended leave, so

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Speaker 10: I passed it on to you, like, oh, yeah, this

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Speaker 10: could be interesting, I'll pick it up. You were very

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Speaker 10: casual about it.

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Speaker 2: I reached out to Charlie to find out more. Charlie's

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Speaker 2: been coming to Australia for work trips since the nineteen eighties.

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Speaker 2: He's made strong friendships on these visits, and it was

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Speaker 2: on one of these trips in twenty thirteen, when his

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Speaker 2: Ozzie friend David Gorman told him about Safe World and

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Speaker 2: Alan Metcalf.

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Speaker 11: David and his friends already had bod shares and they

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Speaker 11: talked me into buying some as well. So I had

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Speaker 11: a look at it and it looked really interesting. That

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Speaker 11: looked like something futuristic. So I thought it was a

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Speaker 11: good investment, and so, you know, we put a whole

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Speaker 11: big part of our savings into it.

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Speaker 2: Charlie wasn't so wealthy that this was spare money he

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Speaker 2: just had floating around.

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Speaker 11: No, that was life savings. We had just finalized everything

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Speaker 11: concerning the mortgage of our house and this was our

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Speaker 11: life saving that we were going to keep for a

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Speaker 11: direction retirement.

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Speaker 2: Still, it seemed like an offer too good to pass up.

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Speaker 11: They seemed like a really good investment, especially knowing that

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Speaker 11: they were intending to take it to the stock exchange.

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Speaker 11: So I thought it was a chance of a life.

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Speaker 2: David Gorman, the man who encouraged Charlie to invest, put

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Speaker 2: in twenty thousand dollars himself. I meet him at his

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Speaker 2: home in Sydney's North where he lives with his wife,

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Speaker 2: kids and two pugs.

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Speaker 4: So I bought some shares at five cents, some at

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Speaker 4: ten cents, and some at a dollar, and he was

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Speaker 4: talking about selling them at would have been about one

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Speaker 4: hundred and fifty dollars a share, So that would have

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Speaker 4: been yeah, quite a few men for myself.

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Speaker 2: He still remembers meeting Alan Metcalf, who seemed to have

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Speaker 2: an almost larger than life presence and a silver tongue.

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Speaker 4: I first met him at the Manly Pacific Hotel, it

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Speaker 4: was called then down at Manly. He always dressed pretty well, actually,

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Speaker 4: he always wore a suit and tie. He was medium height,

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Speaker 4: I think Biggish man, quite large. I think he's probably

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Speaker 4: had a few health issues. He was always out of breath,

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Speaker 4: but very approachable, flake very gifted.

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Speaker 12: The gap.

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Speaker 4: I think the way he was describing what safe worlds

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Speaker 4: can do, and this universal logic that he found in

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Speaker 4: the Bible, you know, if it came off, it came off,

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Speaker 4: but it sounded, I mean, it sounded, you know, intriguing.

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Speaker 2: David works in the health industry and he's actually never

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Speaker 2: invested in anything before. He's not the kind of person

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Speaker 2: to rush into big financial decisions, but there was something

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Speaker 2: different about this opportunity.

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Speaker 4: Never was a risk taker. I'm not a risk taker,

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Speaker 4: same as my father. Very conservative. But my friend Michael Blake,

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Speaker 4: you know, the ex football he'd probably know him or

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Speaker 4: heard of him, got me into this about two thousand

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Speaker 4: and eight.

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Speaker 7: Oh beautiful part.

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Speaker 8: Why am I cave sending this troopers like screaming.

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Speaker 4: Over the twenty two?

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Speaker 12: He's beat right, big work bag.

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Speaker 5: I couldn't comes at him. He's back and found his brother.

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Speaker 3: That's Blake back the back Michael Blake.

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Speaker 8: Oh god, it's.

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Speaker 7: Tapa, his younger brother.

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Speaker 8: I have done so well up on my cave, Pap.

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Speaker 12: That is champlaining football.

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Speaker 2: I speak to Michael Blake at his apartment in the

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Speaker 2: Northern Beaches of Sydney. A Holy Bible sits on the

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Speaker 2: table between us. Michael played professional football throughout the seventies

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Speaker 2: and eighties along with his brother Phil. He's not the

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Speaker 2: most technologically savvy guy.

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Speaker 7: I might also just.

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Speaker 2: Get you to chuck your phone on, are you yeah?

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Speaker 2: Would you be able to put on the aeroplane mode?

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Speaker 12: Or too much?

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Speaker 2: Just because apparently when Michael was there at the funeral,

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Speaker 2: he was actually one of the eight people that carried

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Speaker 2: Alan's coffin to the grave.

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Speaker 6: I was a little bit disappointed in the funeral because

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Speaker 6: the people that talk are basically all talking about Safe

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Speaker 6: World and that business that he worked on. But he

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Speaker 6: was more than that. You know, that was only a

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Speaker 6: part of his life at that time. But as I said,

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Speaker 6: he was a bit of Alaric and he was a

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Speaker 6: good blake.

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Speaker 12: He loved his sport. He's foot him and what have you,

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Speaker 12: and that.

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Speaker 2: In fact, it was sport that drew Alan and Michael together.

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Speaker 6: I was heavily involved in rugby league. I cracked first

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Speaker 6: grade the first time. I meant Allan was down at

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Speaker 6: Darling Harbor because one time that I invested, he was

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Speaker 6: over in Irvine, California at the time, and he even

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Speaker 6: I think he phoned me up and he wanted to

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Speaker 6: know it was Michael from Michael and Phil Blake from Manley,

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Speaker 6: and he said yes. It was.

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Speaker 2: After that first meeting, they stayed in touch.

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Speaker 12: Over many years. I became friends with Alan.

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Speaker 2: Yes, So would you consider him a close friend or

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Speaker 2: what kind of level of friendship would you say there

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Speaker 2: was there?

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Speaker 6: Well, we've probably ended up as class friends. So I

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Speaker 6: spent a lot of time with him over the years,

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Speaker 6: and he had a good sense of humor. You know,

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Speaker 6: he could be a little bit cheeky, and you know

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Speaker 6: he was pretty good company.

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Speaker 2: Michael had made decent money in his sporting career, and

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Speaker 2: outside of putting some into his family business, he hadn't

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Speaker 2: really invested before.

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Speaker 6: I didn't really know what he was talking about, but

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Speaker 6: I knew I wanted to get in. He said it

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Speaker 6: was going to be bigger than Google, and that was

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Speaker 6: pretty big, so I thought I wouldn't mind a bit

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Speaker 6: of action with this. So my national investment was only

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Speaker 6: around five thousand dollars. But over the years, many years,

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Speaker 6: over a decade, we reinvested, reinvested, got the opportunity to

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Speaker 6: reinvest it, and because the program seemed to be building,

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Speaker 6: gathering momentum, nearly ready to take off, we kept on

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Speaker 6: putting more money in me and my family because we

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Speaker 6: wanted to help everyone that we knew, all our kids,

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Speaker 6: all our aunties and everyone like that.

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Speaker 12: And we just thought, you know, how is this and.

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Speaker 2: How much was it in total? Because I think who

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Speaker 2: said five thousand at the beginning? What was the total

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Speaker 2: final number? Like currently as it stands.

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Speaker 6: Well, as we gradually build up. Even at one stage

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Speaker 6: there me and my two brothers. We got our souper

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Speaker 6: and made it a self managed fund and put that in.

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Speaker 6: So all up, over many years we probably put around

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Speaker 6: three hundred thousand in.

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Speaker 12: That's the family.

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Speaker 6: With Dad and my brothers, I actually probably raised over

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Speaker 6: a million dollars. The way people would get involved through

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Speaker 6: me is if I'm going to a football reunion or

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Speaker 6: catching up with people's school unions. You know, they's say, Blakie,

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Speaker 6: what are he up to? And I speak to him

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Speaker 6: about what I'm up to, and I'd mention Safe World,

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Speaker 6: how's supposed to be bigger than Google? It could be

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Speaker 6: worth having a look at and leave it at that,

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Speaker 6: And then they'd get back in contact with me, and

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Speaker 6: I said, well, don't speak to me, I know nothing

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Speaker 6: about it. Speak to Alan. And they'd speak to Alan,

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Speaker 6: get in contact with him, and they'd invest. You know,

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Speaker 6: they'd invest like five or ten grand or twenty grand.

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Speaker 6: One guy put in one hundred grand. But I suppose

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Speaker 6: they put it their money in because they trusted me.

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Speaker 6: But I always got them to speak to Alan.

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Speaker 2: Years later, a lot of his friends are not so

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Speaker 2: happy about this.

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Speaker 6: When they find out how much that I've lost in it.

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Speaker 6: It makes them feel better.

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Speaker 2: Listening to Michael, I start to realize how much of

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Speaker 2: this comes down to belief. Michael believed in Alan, and

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Speaker 2: he believed in Alan's vision, and in turn, his friends

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Speaker 2: believed him.

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Speaker 12: I've kind of.

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Speaker 6: A bit taken aback because a lot of people invested

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Speaker 6: in even though it was five or ten or twenty

303
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Speaker 6: grand or whatever. People invested because they trusted me, and

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Speaker 6: I feel as it was a little bit used.

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Speaker 2: Probably while Michael Blake trusted Alan blindly, not everyone did.

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Speaker 2: Seen one, two three?

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Speaker 5: How much is that doggie in the window room with

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Speaker 5: a waggedy tail? Nice? My name is David Richardson. I'm

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00:17:14,440 --> 00:17:18,959
Speaker 5: a senior producer with Under Investigation with Lis Hayes, and

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Speaker 5: I operate from Channel nine's Sydney office in North Sydney.

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Speaker 2: David Richardson is an investigative journalist who's been in the

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Speaker 2: industry for more than thirty years. He's also Michael Blake's

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Speaker 2: best mate, and when his friends started to talk about

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Speaker 2: safe worlds, alarm bells rang For David.

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Speaker 5: My spider senses were tingling something bad. Alan had impressed

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Speaker 5: him with this concept of safe worlds, and Michael and

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Speaker 5: another one of our friends were interested in having a

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Speaker 5: deeper look at what Alan was trying to sell, and

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Speaker 5: they set up a meeting in town, and Michael asked

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Speaker 5: if I would come in and just act a third eye,

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Speaker 5: you know, just cast an ear over what was being

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Speaker 5: proposed and whether there was any danger involved, obviously with

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Speaker 5: my experience chasing down scammers and bad guys. So there

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Speaker 5: was a meeting in town and we all sort of

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Speaker 5: went in and met with Alan, who had rented an

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Speaker 5: office in the city, and my first impression of him

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Speaker 5: was that he was a hand grenade waiting to go off,

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Speaker 5: and he just didn't look healthy. He was massively overweight,

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Speaker 5: he was ruddy complexion, you know, he just didn't look

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Speaker 5: terribly healthy. But he could talk. He could really, really talk.

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Speaker 5: He was amazing. So he sat down and he started

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Speaker 5: to explain this Safe World's concept, which to me initially

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Speaker 5: seemed to be this combination of almost an alternate internet

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Speaker 5: marketing bizarre similar to Amazon or ali Baba or eBay,

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Speaker 5: but at the same time it had an e commerce perspective.

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Speaker 5: But then the big selling point that he was trying

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Speaker 5: to get across to us outside of that was the

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Speaker 5: creation of universal logic, and he said he had discovered

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Speaker 5: universal logic and the key to being able to allow

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Speaker 5: all computers to talk together. So for people who don't understand,

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Speaker 5: I'll try to put it as simply as I can,

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Speaker 5: because I had to go and get people to explain

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Speaker 5: it to me. Is that individual companies have their own

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Speaker 5: proprietary rights. So you've got Apple or DRL or HP

345
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Speaker 5: or them and all of their programmers right for them.

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Speaker 5: So that's why Microsoft often doesn't sink with Apple, and

347
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Speaker 5: Apple programs won't sync with Microsoft programs. The whole concept

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Speaker 5: of universal logic was that regardless of who the programmer

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Speaker 5: was or who the manufacturer was, the computers worldwide would

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Speaker 5: be able to talk to each other seamlessly, and that

351
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Speaker 5: was going to be the language of safe Woods effectively.

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Speaker 2: David was skeptical, especially when he learned that this key

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Speaker 2: revelation that underpinned the whole scheme Allan was selling had

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Speaker 2: been made while reading the Bible.

355
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Speaker 5: And being an ancient history nut. I said to him instantly,

356
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Speaker 5: or was that the ara mat Hebrew, Greek, Latin or English?

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Speaker 5: And he said English? And I just laughed. I said, Oh,

358
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Speaker 5: you've got to be joking, you know. If he had

359
00:20:30,080 --> 00:20:33,480
Speaker 5: said it was in the Aramaic. I might have sort

360
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Speaker 5: of believed part of it on the grounds that people

361
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Speaker 5: and you know, theologians and historians have been finding code

362
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Speaker 5: in the Original Bible for years, or what they deemed

363
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Speaker 5: to be code. But what he was talking about was

364
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Speaker 5: just tosh. You know, there were some scholars who believe

365
00:20:49,480 --> 00:20:53,280
Speaker 5: now that parts of the English Bible had code that

366
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Speaker 5: had been implanted by Elizabeth the first spy master, Francis Bacon. So,

367
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Speaker 5: you know, for him to suggest that, after so many

368
00:21:00,520 --> 00:21:07,680
Speaker 5: rewrites and translations, that somehow, miraculously this language or code

369
00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:11,080
Speaker 5: or something had somehow materialized in the Bible, and only

370
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Speaker 5: he had been able to find it, after the Bible

371
00:21:13,800 --> 00:21:17,000
Speaker 5: has been poured over by you know, thousands and thousands

372
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Speaker 5: of scholars and theologians. It was just too much for me,

373
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Speaker 5: and I just couldn't. I couldn't swallow it. And I

374
00:21:22,480 --> 00:21:24,720
Speaker 5: remember walking out of the meeting and the three of

375
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Speaker 5: us went up to the Tattlesules Club to have a

376
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Speaker 5: beer before we went home, and they said, what do

377
00:21:29,560 --> 00:21:32,840
Speaker 5: you think? And I said, yeah, don't go near it now.

378
00:21:33,240 --> 00:21:36,159
Speaker 5: I just don't buy it. To me, it just you know,

379
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Speaker 5: I thought it was just rubbish, complete rubbish.

380
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Speaker 2: And there were other things that David found unbelievable too.

381
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Speaker 5: I went down to look at an office space that

382
00:21:48,720 --> 00:21:52,560
Speaker 5: they were talking about buying, and it was the Manly

383
00:21:52,640 --> 00:21:55,920
Speaker 5: Rugby Union building, you know, Manly over the road from

384
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Speaker 5: the Manly Oval. I thought, my god, I mean this

385
00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:03,399
Speaker 5: story building, it costs an absolute bomb. How are you

386
00:22:03,440 --> 00:22:06,040
Speaker 5: going to pay for all of this? You know, they

387
00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:08,080
Speaker 5: were wandering around as if you know, oh yeah, we'll

388
00:22:08,119 --> 00:22:11,240
Speaker 5: put this here and this there and that there. And

389
00:22:11,600 --> 00:22:13,080
Speaker 5: I thought, my god, how are you going to pay

390
00:22:13,080 --> 00:22:15,240
Speaker 5: for all of this? And that was the problem, How

391
00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:16,680
Speaker 5: were they going to pay for any of it?

392
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Speaker 2: Alan did not successfully buy the building. The sale went

393
00:22:21,359 --> 00:22:23,960
Speaker 2: to a tender process in twenty ten, and a well

394
00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:27,040
Speaker 2: known property developer called John Nicholas snapped it up for

395
00:22:27,400 --> 00:22:32,000
Speaker 2: presumably millions. He wouldn't say. David also tells me there

396
00:22:32,040 --> 00:22:34,360
Speaker 2: was something else that made him doubt the whole thing.

397
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Speaker 2: Why was Alan so interested in his friends?

398
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Speaker 5: They were not looking for big companies, And I thought,

399
00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:43,879
Speaker 5: what's going on? You know, they were looking for the

400
00:22:43,920 --> 00:22:47,160
Speaker 5: low hanging fruit. What it means is that you've come

401
00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:51,080
Speaker 5: to the table looking at small Mum and Dad investors

402
00:22:51,680 --> 00:22:57,480
Speaker 5: without having convinced someone with real nuse to put their

403
00:22:57,560 --> 00:23:02,000
Speaker 5: money on the table to start with. So he didn't

404
00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:05,359
Speaker 5: have a big computer company behind him, he didn't have

405
00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:10,600
Speaker 5: big computer programmers behind him. He had rented a lab

406
00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:16,200
Speaker 5: slash office complex in Silicon Valley that he talked about,

407
00:23:16,680 --> 00:23:19,480
Speaker 5: but I mean, I think the thing was for me

408
00:23:19,720 --> 00:23:23,480
Speaker 5: was that there was no big investor. I was just

409
00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:26,119
Speaker 5: really worried that, you know, I was going to have

410
00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:28,520
Speaker 5: friends who were going to lose their dough, but not

411
00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:31,280
Speaker 5: just that that they were being asked to go out

412
00:23:31,280 --> 00:23:34,119
Speaker 5: and use their contacts to try to get more investors.

413
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:37,560
Speaker 5: And I thought, you know, I really feared that that

414
00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:41,400
Speaker 5: would then leave them exposed potentially if the whole thing backfired,

415
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:44,600
Speaker 5: because they would be left holding the baby. And part

416
00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:46,560
Speaker 5: of the deal was that Alan would convince them that

417
00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:49,439
Speaker 5: I know, you know, you can become a major sales

418
00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:52,959
Speaker 5: operator here. And then this started to look like a

419
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:57,160
Speaker 5: pyramid scheme. I wasn't interested in investing in any way,

420
00:23:57,200 --> 00:23:59,719
Speaker 5: shape or form. And you know, my advice to all

421
00:23:59,760 --> 00:24:02,200
Speaker 5: my into that particular point of time was that look,

422
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:05,800
Speaker 5: just wait, at the very least wait before you start

423
00:24:05,840 --> 00:24:08,159
Speaker 5: pouring your money in because I just didn't see that

424
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:09,520
Speaker 5: this was going to go anywhere.

425
00:24:09,960 --> 00:24:13,000
Speaker 2: And how did you feel when they kind of disregarded

426
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:15,280
Speaker 2: your advice and went ahead and invested anyway.

427
00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:20,679
Speaker 5: Oh, I just thought it was silly, you know. I

428
00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:25,239
Speaker 5: thought it was silly, you know, But that's it. I mean,

429
00:24:25,280 --> 00:24:26,240
Speaker 5: these were my friends.

430
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:30,919
Speaker 2: David's friend Michael Blake didn't just invest in Safe Worlds.

431
00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 2: As well as spreading the word in his network, he

432
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:35,800
Speaker 2: started working for the company himself.

433
00:24:36,640 --> 00:24:40,639
Speaker 6: I ended up on advisory board. But I think that

434
00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:44,439
Speaker 6: was mainly because Allen liked me, and because of my

435
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:47,720
Speaker 6: contacts and the contacts that my contacts had. But the

436
00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:50,480
Speaker 6: thing about the advisory board, we weren't.

437
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:51,800
Speaker 12: Listened to, you know.

438
00:24:51,920 --> 00:24:53,639
Speaker 6: But if it had it came off and it was

439
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 6: big like it was, it would have been ridiculous because

440
00:24:56,320 --> 00:24:57,280
Speaker 6: I know nothing about it.

441
00:24:57,760 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 12: I got no interest in it.

442
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:01,720
Speaker 6: I don't like using computer if everybody don't use the

443
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:03,480
Speaker 6: internet unless I have to do, and that it would have

444
00:25:03,520 --> 00:25:07,720
Speaker 6: been we'd being involved in something this big, you know.

445
00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:12,280
Speaker 2: David watched his friends like Michael getting more and more

446
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 2: involved with Alan and investing more and more of their money.

447
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:18,919
Speaker 2: He decided to do something, so he started digging, but

448
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:22,240
Speaker 2: couldn't find any real signs of Safe Worlds being anything

449
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:26,560
Speaker 2: like the potential global technology superstar was being preached.

450
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:29,400
Speaker 5: Us and the whole time too. In the background. After

451
00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:33,600
Speaker 5: about eighteen months was us pushing like, Okay, when are

452
00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:35,119
Speaker 5: we going to see this? When are we going to

453
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:38,879
Speaker 5: see it? You know, show me universal logic, Show it

454
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:41,639
Speaker 5: to me, Show me how show it to me. You know,

455
00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:45,600
Speaker 5: is it like cryptocurrency that it's just this dollar signs

456
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:49,040
Speaker 5: in fresh air or is it real? I mean, show

457
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 5: me how this works, and show me the program, show

458
00:25:51,840 --> 00:25:54,920
Speaker 5: me the Safe world site in Australia, show me all

459
00:25:54,960 --> 00:25:57,800
Speaker 5: this stuff. And it was just so long in coming

460
00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 5: that I thought, where's all this money? Because I knew

461
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:03,879
Speaker 5: that there were people who were investing not just tens

462
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:07,320
Speaker 5: of thousands, but hundreds of thousands. I knew people who

463
00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:11,480
Speaker 5: were investing their superannuation money. It just gobsmacked me that

464
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:15,800
Speaker 5: people were willing to invest. But you know, because of

465
00:26:15,840 --> 00:26:20,240
Speaker 5: the IT boom and because of the success of companies

466
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 5: like Amazon eBay, everyone was looking for that next big

467
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:27,159
Speaker 5: thing and they thought, well, if we can get in

468
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:29,800
Speaker 5: on the ground floor, fabulous.

469
00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 6: He always used to say, trust me, trust me, and

470
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:36,399
Speaker 6: I trusted him, but he didn't trust anyone else.

471
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:40,439
Speaker 2: Michael Blake, the former footy player who became close friends

472
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:43,679
Speaker 2: with Alan, started worrying he might have a problem.

473
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 6: We had some pretty big guys that were willing to help,

474
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:51,960
Speaker 6: and he wouldn't let go. He wouldn't trust them, basically

475
00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 6: because he thought it was too big.

476
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:55,800
Speaker 2: One time, Alan even had a meeting with an IT

477
00:26:56,240 --> 00:26:59,840
Speaker 2: expert who had extensive contacts in the military.

478
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:03,159
Speaker 6: And said he was the smartest IT person he's ever met.

479
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:07,919
Speaker 6: And he goes, Alan, you might have real artificial intelligence.

480
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:11,640
Speaker 6: I'll sign an NDA shame if you got it, we'll

481
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:14,480
Speaker 6: get it going, mate, and he refused to do it.

482
00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:17,160
Speaker 12: He did, so I can't trust him. I can't trust him.

483
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:19,040
Speaker 2: Do you think that was because he didn't trust him

484
00:27:19,040 --> 00:27:21,960
Speaker 2: all because he didn't actually have the product to show?

485
00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 12: Well, it didn't make sense to me, but maybe he

486
00:27:27,359 --> 00:27:28,720
Speaker 12: didn't have anything to shape.

487
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:35,280
Speaker 2: As I started to dig, I found more and more

488
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 2: people who had invested their money. One person put in

489
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:43,160
Speaker 2: one point five million dollars. Entire families staked their fortune

490
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:46,440
Speaker 2: on the venture. Michael Blake wasn't even the biggest recruiter

491
00:27:46,480 --> 00:27:50,200
Speaker 2: for Safe Worlds. Another man raised fifteen million dollars from

492
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:54,119
Speaker 2: four hundred and fifty other people. Some of them wouldn't

493
00:27:54,119 --> 00:27:56,920
Speaker 2: speak to me because they were afraid it would impact

494
00:27:56,920 --> 00:28:00,800
Speaker 2: their chances of getting their money back. In total, Alan

495
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 2: managed to raise forty nine million dollars from his friends,

496
00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:07,800
Speaker 2: their families, and other small time investors. And perhaps that's

497
00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:11,000
Speaker 2: the craziest part of this whole thing. That's a lot

498
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:14,439
Speaker 2: of money. To put in context. Forty nine million dollars

499
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:18,880
Speaker 2: is about one hundred ferraris forty yachts. It's more than

500
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:22,840
Speaker 2: twice the amount that infamous Sydney conwoman Melissa Caatics scammed

501
00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:26,400
Speaker 2: out of people, which was twenty three million. Forty nine

502
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:29,680
Speaker 2: million could buy you forty nine houses in Sydney, well,

503
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:34,879
Speaker 2: maybe more like Melbourne these days. If you looked at

504
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:37,800
Speaker 2: Alan's website, you'd never guess that this was the business

505
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:42,240
Speaker 2: he'd founded with that much money. Www dot safeworlds dot tv.

506
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 2: When I try to access it now I get an

507
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 2: Era four or four not found. But looking back at

508
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 2: old videos and screenshots of the website, I can see

509
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:54,560
Speaker 2: an amateurish layout like something straight out of the nineties,

510
00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 2: not a slick, multimillion dollar outfit, and By the time

511
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:01,480
Speaker 2: Allan died, there was no one left working at the place.

512
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:04,760
Speaker 2: Michael Blake tells me about how he heard that his

513
00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 2: friend had died.

514
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 6: I remember because I was at a care of beach

515
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:10,360
Speaker 6: for a function for a weekend and that with a

516
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 6: few mates, and I was just walking along the beach

517
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:14,560
Speaker 6: with a bit of a hangover when I got a

518
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 6: phone call from Mary saying I've got some bad news

519
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:19,080
Speaker 6: for it. And I kind of knew before it's even

520
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:22,360
Speaker 6: told me. He said, Alan's passed away. We're all in shop.

521
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:22,800
Speaker 6: You know.

522
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 2: Alan's death was a personal tragedy, but Michael realized there

523
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:31,240
Speaker 2: was also something else left unresolved with his passing. Alan

524
00:29:31,320 --> 00:29:34,239
Speaker 2: had no heir to take over the business. No one

525
00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:36,560
Speaker 2: knew what was supposed to happen now that he was dead.

526
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:42,479
Speaker 6: As far as I understand, he had the algorithm in

527
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 6: a safety secure box or something in the Cayman Islands,

528
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 6: and that was the protection of the algorithm, and he

529
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 6: gifted it to charity if something happened to him and

530
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 6: Mary or whatever.

531
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:56,920
Speaker 12: He was very protective of it.

532
00:29:57,160 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 6: He always said if it got in the wrong hand

533
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:01,280
Speaker 6: and it could destroy the world.

534
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:07,040
Speaker 2: So Alan had been thinking about the future. But according

535
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:09,400
Speaker 2: to Michael, he had planned so little for his death

536
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:11,440
Speaker 2: that his wife and son were unable to front the

537
00:30:11,480 --> 00:30:12,760
Speaker 2: costs for his funeral.

538
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 6: Just for paying some bills, internet bills, phone bills, the

539
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:25,720
Speaker 6: registration of the liquid gold in the Cayman Islands or

540
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:27,960
Speaker 6: wherever it was, and just a few things and that,

541
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:32,000
Speaker 6: and you know, I probably lent him I don't know,

542
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 6: thirty or forty thousand dollars or.

543
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:35,280
Speaker 9: Something like that.

544
00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 2: Well, and did they ever pay it back? Were you

545
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:40,400
Speaker 2: just kind of never asked for it? Or how did

546
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:40,920
Speaker 2: that work?

547
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 3: Well?

548
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 6: Mary said that she'll pay me back tenfold when the

549
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 6: Irish steel comes off.

550
00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 2: The Irish deal was supposedly where an irishman was going

551
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:56,080
Speaker 2: to buy the whole business for more than a billion dollars.

552
00:30:56,720 --> 00:30:59,720
Speaker 2: And as for the liquid gold, Michael mentioned it was

553
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:02,520
Speaker 2: linked to a digital currency business Alan had opened in

554
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 2: the Cayman Islands. I'll explain more in a later episode,

555
00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 2: I promise. At this point, I'm going to pause for

556
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:13,720
Speaker 2: a moment because, dear listener, I have a confession. If

557
00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:16,640
Speaker 2: you're thinking that Alan might not have been entirely upfront

558
00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 2: with his investors, well I have to confess that I

559
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 2: haven't been entirely upfront with you. I said I'd started

560
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 2: this podcast at the end with Allan's funeral, but actually

561
00:31:26,400 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 2: this is just the beginning. Mike crusade to find the

562
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:31,960
Speaker 2: missing money has taken me all over the country, to

563
00:31:32,040 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 2: most of the capital cities and also a tiny town

564
00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:36,880
Speaker 2: in Western Australia which could be the key to it all.

565
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 2: The search for the millions has also led me to

566
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:43,280
Speaker 2: notorious tax havens like the British Virgin Islands, and had

567
00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:46,560
Speaker 2: me trying to track down an Irish billionaire. At times,

568
00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:49,920
Speaker 2: I've been looking over my shoulder for Russian cronies. My

569
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 2: investigation will take me from Australia's richest woman to this

570
00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 2: nation's most controversial politician, all the way to Tea Party

571
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 2: and ex US President Donald Trump. It might have begun

572
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:04,280
Speaker 2: at Alan's funeral, but his story is far from over.

573
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:08,480
Speaker 5: How could you do it?

574
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:14,160
Speaker 4: He was basically version point five of Trump As a question.

575
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:16,400
Speaker 7: I just said, Alan, this is just crazy.

576
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 9: I can't do this.

577
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:20,080
Speaker 1: You claim that he was the savior of the or

578
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:22,160
Speaker 1: could be the savior of the world if it all

579
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 1: turned out right for him, you know, and for us.

580
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 5: There's a hidden partner there's somebody else involved in this

581
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:31,800
Speaker 5: potentially is the other person's spider at the center of

582
00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 5: the web. The only other alternative is that he's not

583
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 5: dead and that he's in fact living off the money.

584
00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. A new episode is coming out weekly

585
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:45,560
Speaker 2: wherever you get your podcasts, make sure you subscribe so

586
00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 2: you don't miss an episode. Head to news dot com

587
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 2: dot Au to read more of my reporting on this story.

588
00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:54,480
Speaker 2: Do you know more? Get in touch through our dedicated

589
00:32:54,520 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 2: tip inbox Missing Millions at news dot com dot Au

590
00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:01,640
Speaker 2: or contact me directly on our Alex dot Turner, Dashcohen

591
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:04,400
Speaker 2: at news dot com Doreau, or look me up on

592
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:08,280
Speaker 2: Twitter to get my details. I'm your host, Alex Turner Cohen.

593
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:12,520
Speaker 2: Nina Young is the executive producer, sound design and editing

594
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:17,280
Speaker 2: by Tiffany Dimack. Our editorial director is Dan Box. Grant

595
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 2: McAvaney is our legal advisor, and Kerry Warren is the

596
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 2: editor of news dot com Doreay you