The New Zealand founder of a world-leading supplement company has resigned amid a podcast investigation that raised questions over his criminal history and unpaid fines and reparations by his now-defunct firms.
Former Auckland police officer “Chris the Kiwi” Ashenden has won business acclaim in the United States for building his company AG1 into a US$1.2 billion ($2b) unicorn, on the back of a single green powder of the same name.
It’s regarded as the world leader in social influencer marketing, building an enormous subscriber base with the paid endorsements of stars such as Joe Rogan, Gwyneth Paltrow and Sir Lewis Hamilton.
AG1 founder Chris Ashenden has resigned from the world-leading supplement company.
Fines and reparations ordered against the globe-trotting executive’s New Zealand companies have since been cancelled after those firms were wound up, but to those Kiwis who lost their homes, that doesn’t make it okay.
Ashenden’s criminal history emerged as part of a wide-ranging podcast investigation into the supplements industry’s lack of science and regulation, and the outsized role of influencers such as Rogan and scientist Dr Andrew Huberman, who sources say are paid millions of dollars to promote AG1.
Ashenden’s resignation as chief executive came amid questions raised by the Delve Powder Keg podcastregarding challenges to AG1’s revenues and alleged misleading claims about the product being made in New Zealand.
The podcast had also asked AG1 questions about the efficacy and health impact of the supplement, Ashenden’s academic credentials, and his criminal record.
AG1 declined to answer questions about whether Ashenden’s departure was related to the media scrutiny, claiming only that the transition had been happening for some time and noting Ashenden remained on the board of directors for the US and Cayman Islands-registered firm.
More than 10 years ago, the Commerce Commission took two successful criminal prosecutions against Ashenden’s previous companies and, ultimately, against him personally for scams in which he purported to sell people homes in rent-to-buy schemes – but didn’t transfer title.
Former Auckland police officer Chris Ashenden was convicted of scams in a rent-to-buy scheme that didn't confer title to purchasers. Photo / Jonathan Milne
AG1 is regarded as the world leader in social influencer marketing, building an enormous subscriber base with the paid endorsements of stars such as Joe Rogan, Gwyneth Paltrow and Sir Lewis Hamilton. Photo / Joe Rogan
In 2011, Auckland District Court judge Lindsay Moore ruled: “Folk were lured into commitments which were a recipe for disaster in which they lost everything they had put into the property they were seeking to acquire – indeed were given the understanding they had acquired.”
He added: “There are, in this offending, strong elements of cynicism and the calculated exploitation of people struggling financially.”
This year, Ashenden had refused to be interviewed about his history of business successes and failures, and how he’d rebuilt personally and professionally in New Zealand and the US.
But, eventually, he was forced to confront the criminal offending that he had previously denied.
Approached by the Powder Keg in the street in the Mexican resort town of Playa del Carmen, outside the Grand Hyatt hotel where he was meeting with AG1’s executive leadership team, Ashenden expressed surprise. “What are you doing here?”
He tried to duck questions about his criminal history, his wound-up companies’ unpaid fines and reparations, and the efficacy and health impact of his green powder supplement. “We said we did not want to speak to you, sir.”
After seven minutes of questioning Ashenden in Mexico, AG1 finally agreed to answer questions over email.
“Like most entrepreneurs, I’ve had a career of both successes and failures,” Ashenden said.
“I made mistakes and regretful decisions in my early business ventures, and I faced the legal and financial consequences. I deeply apologise to anyone who was hurt as a result of my decisions. I believe in owning my mistakes and hope others can learn from my experiences as I have.”
Earlier this year, in a public Substack post, in a meeting with the company’s 300-plus staff, and in a letter from his lawyer, he had admitted to business failures. But he denied ever being convicted of a crime, or having a warrant issued for his arrest.
In fact, the podcast’s investigations reveal he was convicted in Auckland District Court of 43 criminal breaches of the Fair Trading Act, and when he didn’t initially pay his fines and reparations, the court issued an arrest warrant.
In Playa del Carmen he refused to address those questions and, to this day, Ashenden will say only: “I failed to ensure the dates and specific details that I provided my lawyer and team were fully accurate. I have since corrected what I initially shared.”
He did eventually pay the fines and reparations ordered against him personally in order to have the warrant lifted so he could return to New Zealand without being arrested.
AG1 built an enormous subscriber base with the paid endorsements of stars such as Gwyneth Paltrow. Photo / Getty Images
But the victims did not receive the $182,000 in fines and reparations that the Auckland and Invercargill district courts separately ordered against his one-man companies.
People who wrongly thought they’d purchased homes from his companies have spoken out in interviews for the Powder Keg podcast.
Dee Chisholm, a life coach who now lives in the remote Southland community of Nightcaps, was the first to blow the whistle on one of Ashenden’s property scams.
She had visited the bank to ask to see a statement of her mortgage payments. “They came back to me in the bank and said, well, you don’t exist. You don’t have a mortgage here. And I said, yes, I do. No, they said, you don’t exist.
“I thought, I’m going to get to the bottom of this and some bank’s got to have this information, this money’s going somewhere.”
The courts ordered Ashenden’s company CMA Property Investments to pay her $20,200 reparations – but it never did. Ashenden ultimately wound up the company.
One of the families forced to sell out of their home in Invercargill was Michelle Young, her husband and three children.
When the couple had first bought into the low-deposit home scheme in 2003 it had seemed like “a godsend” enabling them to get a foot on the property ladder.
“I had nothing,” Michelle said in a podcast interview. “I just had two bags of clothes and three kids, three teenage kids. I just had to start at the bottom of the barrel again, you know?
“I was very naive, now looking back, I think, God’s sake, girl. But you know, you believe people.”
Thinking they owned the property, the couple painted it inside and out, fenced it, put in a new kitchen benchtop, and built a deck out the back.
But when the relationship was under stress and they decided to sell, they discovered they’d never had title. They hired a lawyer and eventually were able to get some of their money back – but only a small fraction of what they’d put into it.
“I felt embarrassed,” Young said. “I thought, Jesus Christ, I really got sucked in there.”
None of these people received the thousands of dollars in reparations that the courts had ordered Ashenden’s companies – Meguro Ltd, the Home Finance Company Ltd and CMA Property Investments Ltd – to pay them.
“Just tell the truth and own it,” Young said. “Instead of hoping it all goes away all the time and avoiding it. And, as every year goes by, these people that you took money from, are probably still struggling.”
Anita Mika, a bus driver in South Auckland, put down a $2000 deposit for a three-bedroom weatherboard house in Ōtara, and agreed to pay $370 a week for 30 years to clear the $180,000 purchase price. That’s an effective interest rate of 10.3% – much more than she’d have paid in rent, or on a bank mortgage.
The victims did not receive the $182,000 in fines and reparations that the Auckland and Invercargill district courts separately ordered against Chris Ashenden's one-man companies. Photo / 123rf
Many of the families were evicted, or had to walk away from the houses they thought were their homes. Mika, like some other victims, had built up sufficient equity that she was eventually able to refinance and buy her home, at additional cost.
But as a court would subsequently find, Mika had to “unburden herself of the abnormally onerous aspects of her transaction”. This included $10,000 in early exit fees to Ashenden’s property scheme.
Ashenden eventually paid the $5000 he was personally ordered to pay Mika, in 2014. She never received the $5000 reparations ordered against his one-man company Meguro Ltd.
Mika’s sister Asenati Aki also bought into the scheme – but she died in 2011 before Ashenden paid any reparations. “We can forgive, but we never forget,” Mika said.
In interviews for the podcast, Chisholm, Young, Mika and other victims called for Ashenden to pay the now cancelled $182,000 in unpaid fines and reparations by the wound-up companies – and asked him to explain his actions to them.
Despite new scrutiny from regulators of AG1’s claims, Ashenden insisted this business was different from his previous failed business ventures in New Zealand and Australia.
“Over the past 14 years, I’ve been proud to work with seasoned leaders who bring diverse skills and deep experience to our team,” he said.
“They have helped transform it from a start-up into a global business that has served millions of customers worldwide. That’s why AG1 is even better today than when we started.”
Up until this year, AG1 was heavily marketed as being made in New Zealand. It’s actually not sold here – but earlier this year, the company registered an AG1 subsidiary with Ashenden’s Picton-based father Philip as the director.
Kat Cole, the company’s former president and chief operating officer, was promoted to chief executive in July. She told Bloomberg that AG1 was projected to generate more than US$600 million in revenue and to be profitable this fiscal year.
