Party pill godfather Matt Bowden in Thailand - company owes $3.6m

Matt Bowden who has been forced to sell all three of his houses to pay debts to Inland Revenue. Photo / Chris Loufte

Legal high godfather Matt Bowden is now living in Thailand and his company's liquidators say they have been unable to contact him.

Bowden put his company, Stargate Operations, into voluntary liquidation last year when he couldn't afford to pay his bills and was locked out of his lab where he made synthetic cannabis.

Creditors have claimed more than $3.6 million from the failed firm.

Inland Revenue wants more than $1 million and 22 unsecured creditors say they are owed $2.2 million. Employees have claimed $457,000 in wages, redundancy, bonuses and holiday pay. Of this, about $137,000 has been paid.

Stargate's liquidators, however, have recovered just under $310,000 after selling the company's assets and recovering loans and other debts.

The liquidator's, Derek Ah Sam and Paul Vlasic, are now investigating whether they can collect the shareholders' overdrawn current account.

Stargate's shareholders, according to Companies Office records, are Bowden and his wife, Kristi.

Ah Sam and Vlasic say they have been unable to contact Bowden for some time.

"The liquidators have been advised that the director is residing in Thailand, however they have been unable to contact the director for a period of time," they said in a report published yesterday.

Bowden, who made rock music under the stage name Starboy, is credited with introducing party pills to New Zealand and later moved into importing and manufacturing synthetic cannabis.

Following Stargate's liquidation, his Auckland properties were sold off, including a sprawling clifftop home in Auckland suburb of Torbay.

Read the latest liquidators' report here: