Fraud accused cheated victims out of $1.7m

File photo / NZ Herald

Crown prosecutors today alleged an accused conman repaid only $7000 of the $1.7 million he obtained fraudulently from dozens of victims over almost 20 years.

James Lindon Graham, 67, went on trial in Timaru District Court on 99 representative charges of obtaining money by deception, using a document for pecuniary advantage, and money laundering al of which he denied.

The trial is set down for five weeks.

Graham was arrested at Auckland International Airport on July 2009 as he was about fly to Singapore on a one-way ticket and granted bail to a Christchurch address.

In his opening address prosecutor Tim Gresson alleged Graham continued to operate his fraudulent investment schemes while on bail and a friend of one of his victims became suspicious.

The friend arranged a number of meetings with the defendant which were recorded. A cheque, drawn on a non-active bank account, was given to the defendant as an investment in one of the schemes which, Mr Gresson said, was an attempt to defraud.

Graham was arrested again shortly afterwards and charged with further offences.

Mr Gresson said the defendant had, at various times over the two decades of alleged offending, represented himself as the illegitimate son and the adopted son of former presidents of Indonesia Surkano and Surhato.

He said Graham had also claimed he had a close association with the Indonesian Royal family and was assisting one of them to access his share of his late father's estate for which he needed temporary funding with promises of significant returns to investors.

While most of his victims were elderly people, Mr Gresson said the defendant had also promised to finance the purchase of a $7 million farm for man in his 30s but would need a investment to gain access to foreign bank accounts. The farm was never purchased and the farmer eventually went bankrupt as a result.

He said Graham also falsely claimed to have had a military involvement in the Vietnam War and a war in Africa, for which he had been paid large sums of money but needed assistance from investors to access his overseas accounts.

Mr Gresson said the basis of the various fraudulent schemes was to claim he had access to vast sums of money or gold bullion in Indonesia but needed financial assistance to access it or have the certificates for the bullion authenticated.

He said the defendant also used false documents to show he had large accounts in various foreign bank accounts and arranged for associates to call potential investors to verify his claims.

Mr Gresson said Graham recruited several of his victims to also act as his agents, collecting money from more victims and depositing these amounts in his bank account. He said Graham had later used the Western Union International Money Transfer to have his victims investments sent to him in Indonesia.

Mr Gresson said there were several suitcases full of documented evidence of the charges.

On November 29 last year Graham, who has suffered a stroke and walks with difficulty, dismissed his lawyer as his trial was about to begin and was remanded in custody.

The trial was abandoned and a subsequent application to have the trial relocated to Christchurch was declined.

- NZPA