Oct 31, 2023 2 min read

Ivanhoe Law Firm Under Investigation Over Missing Funds

Police investigating local law firm over missing investment funds

Shock for racing industry during Spring Carnival

AMS Ivanhoe Lawyers has been shocked by the sudden death of founder John Adams and allegedly missing millions invested by figures from the Victorian racing industry.

No other AMS Ivanhoe Lawyers employees are suspected of involvement.

The law firm was established in 1966 as Adams Maguire Sier shortly after John Adams graduated from law school.

AMS Ivanhoe Lawyers communicates regularly with its local client base.

One media report suggests this investment scheme is "a greater Ponzi scheme than the Melissa Caddick affair".

The Victorian Bookmakers’ Association (VBA) oversees an AU$10m fund for its clients. According to the Herald, a source close to the sports betting body estimated AU$1.8m ($1.1m) had gone missing, with at least AU$20m ($12.7m) in “additional private investments.”

One investor is said to be at risk of losing $11 million, from around $22m allegedly missing.

John Adams - recently deceased - is said to have had a long history of involvement in the horse racing industry. Missing funds are said to be associated with racing industry figures including bookmakers who saw attractive returns promised in what they understood were first mortgage investments.

The investment scheme problems may go back two decades.

Media reports suggest lunches were hosted at Ivanhoe restaurants to recruit new funds into the scheme.

A Ponzi scheme relies on new inflows to the investment fund to pay withdrawals and earnings where the fund's investments have underperformed.

Ultimately a day of reckoning arrives.

UPDATE 3 NOVEMBER

Internet and media stories are now suggesting a figure of "$100 million" is at risk in this alleged Ponzi scheme, and that footballers and "sporting identities" are as widely affected as the earlier touted "racing industry".

One hopes that eventually a substantial amount of realisable financial and other assets will be tracked down and returned to investors as "cents in the dollar".

Losses on this scale must impact the lives of the investors, their income stream, their retirement plans. Some were perhaps naive, some may have been cavalier, some may have been plain unlucky.

All are victims of a scam - a big, long-lasting scam.

If, as suggested in media reports, this fund being run out of a modest suburban law firm has "$100 million" at risk then some questions need be asked about the various regulatory agencies diligence, any financial institutions involved in handling such a volume of funds and transactions, and any promoters, spruikers, recruiters, financial advisors and the like who introduced new clients into this web.