The house in South Yarra Effrett hoped to buy. Photo: Domain
Graeme Effrett wanted to win the acceptance and love of his children. And so the pizza-deliverer pretended to a be a "big shot" and submitted a huge bid for a South Yarra mansion – using a forged cheque.
He even toured his kids through the mansion; they went out later to shop for bikes for the bike path nearby.
The fraudster also had his father convince neighbours to give him huge loans for a non-existent business. Those loans were never repaid, and his father passed away from cancer. He also defrauded two women involved in romantic relationships with him; they are still owed thousands.
Effrett will be sentenced by Melbourne's County Court later this month after pleading guilty to a range of dishonesty offences on Friday. He was remanded in custody. None of his family speak to him any more.
The offending was driven by a desire for "the acceptance and love of his children", Barnaby Johnston, Effrett's barrister, told the court on Friday.
"But it was pretty clear ... that he was never going to be able to purchase that property. It was only a matter of time before he would be caught."
Effrett was raised in Horsham in western Victoria and the 48-year-old's life appeared to be going in a solid direction until about 2002. He had a good job and a young family.
In 2002, he was declared bankrupt, court documents show. Five years later his wife divorced him.
In 2010 he applied for an offshore loan of $US290 million, apparently with a man he had never met. He planned to use the loan to purchase tractor giant John Deere Machinery.
By 2011, his elderly father Wally had asked a family friend and a pair of neighbours for loans to support Effrett's already-failed business. All up they gave Effrett about $30,000. He spent that money on his own living expenses.
While he was doing all this, Effrett was out of a job – his only income was Centrelink.
In 2012, Effrett's scam changed. He moved into the world of online dating, where he met two women and convinced both he was a wealthy property developer and conned them both out of about $50,000.
Effrett then sent the money to people in Africa and China, and someone in South Africa named "Princess Diamini".
In 2015, desperate to win his children's approval, according to his defence barrister, he toured them through a beautiful three-bedroom, four-bathroom South Yarra mansion and made a $5.9 million bid to buy it.
At the time, he was living in a tiny room over the top of a pizza shop.
But he couldn't come up with the 10 per cent deposit. Two months later he tried again, submitting a higher offer of $6.05 million – and a forged cheque. A month later the cheque bounced.
Effrett also deposited counterfeit cheques into his own bank account, one for $US4.6 million later that month, plus one of $US9.8 million into an account he controlled.
