06 | Bondy | The turncoat

Bondy fronts the courts, putting on the performance of a lifetime, as he’s finally called to answer for his dodgy deals. And despite being declared bankrupt, Alan Bond continues living the high life. He's spotted cruising around Perth in his Rolls-Royce and indulging in lavish lunches. Then, a disgruntled defector in Alan Bond's camp comes forward, who threatens to send Bondy to prison for a very long time. This is the final episode of a 6-part history podcast series from ABC Rewind for Radio National and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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  Before knives out, before true crime podcasts, there was Agatha Christie. Claire Nichols here and I'd love you to join me on the book show as we investigate the life and books of Dame Agatha Christie, the so-called queen of crime.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  She was definitely my gateway drug, if you like.

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  Yeah, I wish I had my Little Miss Marple mug that I could show you right now.

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  Search for the Agatha Christie Murder Club on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:37Speaker 03

  Just a warning, this episode contains strong language, adult themes and discussions of suicide.

• 0:45Speaker 03

  It's episode six and we're almost at the end of the Alan Bond story, but there's still a couple more twists and turns to come, so let's get into it, shall we? It's 1993 and Alan Bond has just been released from prison and although Bondi might be free, his problems are far from over.

• 1:06Speaker 04

  Alan Bond says he's broke. His personal debts run to about a quarter of a billion dollars. His old companies owe perhaps eight times that amount.

• 1:16Speaker 03

  All up, Alan Bond owes more than $5 billion. The Aussie icon, billionaire businessman, America's Cup winner is bankrupt. And under Australia's bankruptcy laws, he's forced to live on a very tight budget.

• 1:33Speaker 04

  As a bankrupt, he has a credit limit of $500 and he's not allowed to own a car worth more than $2,500.

• 1:40Speaker 03

  Did he, did he do that?

• 1:42Speaker 05

  Did he do that? No, he didn't. He continued to live in the fabulous house. He continued to drive around in his Rolls Royce Corny. She continued to fly around the world and he clearly had millions and millions and millions of dollars at his disposal. And there's great stories of him, you know, taking people to lunch and pulling out massive rolls of $50 notes and paying the waiters.

• 2:02Speaker 03

  Huh. If Bondi's so broke, where's he getting all this money from? Luckily for us, we have journalist and professional bond hunter, Paul Barry, to tell us how Bond is pulling this off.

• 2:14Speaker 05

  He'd hidden his money all over the world in Jersey and Panama and Isle of Man and Liechtenstein and Liberia and Austria, Christ knows where.

• 2:23Speaker 03

  Bondi has always known he could go bust in a heartbeat, has always suspected the bankruptcy monster might be hiding under the bed. So he's been stashing money away for years. No wonder he can't pay his debts. And now this hidden loot, it's being looked after for Bondi by a man in Switzerland.

• 2:43Speaker 05

  So you see all this money going out and it's going to Jörg Bolag on account of Alan Bond.

• 2:50Speaker 03

  Jörg Bolag? Who the devil is that?

• 2:53Speaker 05

  He's a banker in Zug. Zug is the home of Swiss secrecy. He owns horses for Bond and paintings and all sorts of other things. So basically Bolag is signing all the checks with Bondi's money for all these things that the Bond family use.

• 3:07Speaker 03

  Bolag's also paying Bondi's legal fees and playing landlord to Bond and his family.

• 3:14Speaker 05

  He runs a company called Lindsay Trading Properties, which owns this wonderful Tudor mansion called Uphall, north of London. Beautiful place, 12 bedrooms, 400 acres, something like that. And the Bond family lived there whenever they're in England. And Bolag says, well, I own it, but I just, you know, give it rent free to my good mate Alan Bond, you know, out of the goodness of my heart.

• 3:33Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 3:33Speaker 05

  And you go, oh, come on.

• 3:36Speaker 03

  Man, I really need to up my friend game. Anyhow, Paul Barry's calling bullshit and so, reporting for ABC's Four Corners, he flies to Switzerland to hunt down Bolag and put him in the hot seat.

• 3:49Speaker 05

  We're in Zug. We drive past his house and as we drive past his garden, there he is, sitting in a deck chair. And we go, fuck, that's him, quick. And so we, we drive a bit further along and we poke the camera over the hedge and I go, excuse me, are you George Bolag? Yes. Paul Barry from Australian television. We're hoping to talk to you about Alan Bond, who is a friend of yours, I believe. This is Sunday, please. I realise it's a Sunday. Would you? Would you please leave? We'd like to talk to you. You have, well, we'll get further back. Can you please talk to us about Alan Bond? Why is it not possible to talk to us, Mr Bolag? It's a matter of some importance to people back in Australia as well.

• 4:33Speaker 03

  His dogs are barking at you the whole time.

• 4:34Speaker 05

  Yes, that's right. You've got a couple of Alsatians, hasn't he? Yeah. And he then disappears into the house and calls the police.

• 4:43Speaker 03

  I laugh, but really it's no laughing matter. The police do come and speak to Paul. Luckily, they don't take it any further.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  A bankruptcy trustee is breathing down Alan Bond's neck and hunting all over the world for the money and assets he squirreled away. But it's not just financial detectives on the case. The law isn't done with Bondi yet either. After a lifetime of playing corporate sleight of hand, of bending the rules and getting away with it, the legal spider web that threatens to trap Alan Bond once and for all is almost spun. I'm Mark Humphries and from ABC Rewind, this is Bondi, From Hero to Zero, episode six, The Turncoat.

• 5:43Speaker 03

  The best way to describe how Alan Bond has hidden away his money is this. It's like a babushka doll, more accurately called a matryoshka. Those Russian dolls you open up only to find another and another and another. And just when you think you're at that last tiny doll, there's yet another one to open. There are overseas bank accounts, financial trusts and the most ridiculously complex web of companies within companies. Bondi's done some next level financial wizardry, which is not great for the guy who's trying to find the tiny babushka, bankruptcy trustee, Robert Ramsay.

• 6:23Speaker 05

  They could see huge traps of money flowing out of Jersey, through London to Switzerland, out of Switzerland, back to London, and some of it coming back to Australia. But they couldn't get their hands on it because they couldn't get into Switzerland. They couldn't get the Swiss to produce the documents. It was all just too hard.

• 6:39Speaker 03

  But even more unfortunate for Ramsay is what happens next when a new character crashes onto the scene, someone who will make Ramsay's life a living hell. Enter James, Big Jim Burns, not to be confused with Big Red nor Tiny Roland, who was actually big. Thank God, this is the final episode. Anyway, here's Jim.

• 7:04Speaker 06

  I stand up for people's rights. I stand up for integrity. I stand up for oppression. That's who I've become.

• 7:12Speaker 03

  Big Jim steps into the ring to fight for the oppressed Alan Bond.

• 7:16Speaker 06

  I am a corporate street fighter. I fix dumb rich people's problems.

• 7:20Speaker 03

  Not quite how he phrases it on LinkedIn, but I appreciate the candour. In the early 1990s, Burns is fixing dumb rich people's problems all over the country. Essentially, he helps rich folk who find themselves in a financial mess reduce their bankruptcy load, that is, the total amount they owe. And look, Burns is speaking from experience, having been a dumb rich person himself before going bankrupt in his late twenties.

• 7:49Speaker 06

  I was also a victim of the property crash. I owned a car dealership and I was making a lot of money and was buying property and more property and more property and more property. And I got bankrupted over that.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  That's not the only pickle Big Jim's found himself in.

• 8:04Speaker 06

  There's that song, you know, regrets, I've had a few. And so, yes, I've made mistakes. Wisdom is attained from a lifetime of mistakes and learning.

• 8:14Speaker 03

  It's only a few years after Burns's own bankruptcy when a mutual friend hooks him up with Alan Bond.

• 8:21Speaker 06

  And somebody who'd been having chats with Bondi, he said, I know this young bloke. He's not mainstream. You should meet him. And so I got a phone call and he said, come to the limousine straight away.

• 8:32Speaker 03

  To be clear, that's a hotel, not the prison from TV shows Prisoner and Wentworth, though in this story, either is possible. The Wentworth Hotel is a popular drinking hole for dumb rich, excuse me, wealthy businessmen in Sydney's CBD. Burns's line of work brings him to the Wentworth often to spruik his services over a martini or two. But on this day, Big Jim puts on his best suit and heads in to meet Alan Bond. He's a wee bit starstruck.

• 9:03Speaker 06

  Bondi was the person who inspired the little people to excel. He was like that little steam engine that I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. And he did. And he gave every guy who had a dream, hope. This was a fallen hero, as far as I was concerned. He was not perfect, but again, who is? Who amongst us is without sin should cast the first stone?

• 9:27Speaker 03

  Something tells me this guy keeps daily affirmations on his desk. Bond takes a shine to the philosophical Burns and recruits him as a bankruptcy advisor of sorts, someone to negotiate with creditors to buy back his debt for much less than they're owed. Now, you might be wondering, why would anyone who's owed money agree to be paid back so much less? Well, the reality is there's no guarantee Bond's creditors will get any of their money back. So it's either take what's on offer or hold out and potentially get nothing. Big Jim tests this strategy out on a relatively small creditor, the Commonwealth Bank.

• 10:09Speaker 06

  Bondi had had a credit card and it was $10,000 that was owing on it. And I said, hi. I'd had some young bloke there at five o'clock on a Friday night. And I said, oh, I'd like to buy that debt. And he went, oh, well, what do you want to pay for it? I said, about $400. And he said, Yeah, okay. I then immediately sent a press release out that Commonwealth Bank support Bond's release from bankruptcy. And of course, they were furious.

• 10:38Speaker 03

  Four hundred bucks for a $10,000 debt? That's a win for Bond. The strategy has worked on this first little fish. But when Bond's bankruptcy trustee, Robert Ramsay, gets wind of this, he is fuming.

• 10:52Speaker 06

  Mr Ramsay didn't like insolent young pups coming up and telling him what they could and couldn't do. And I was that insolent young pup.

• 10:58Speaker 03

  Big Jim is Ramsay's worst nightmare. And you can only imagine the faces on the suits when he rocks up with Bond's team to an official bankruptcy meeting in his trademark blue Rolls Royce.

• 11:10Speaker 06

  There are 30 creditors with their lawyers. I had written out a list of 81 questions, all annoying questions. Then I said, Mr Ramsay, can I ask a question? And he went, I'd ask the next question, and then I'd ask the next question. I was just a pain in their butt.

• 11:29Speaker 03

  Must be very painful to have a guy named Big Jim in your butt.

• 11:34Speaker 06

  And it got to the stage where people were, sit down, shut up, sit down. I got basically abused and abused and abused and abused and abused, which is exactly what I expected to happen and exactly what I wanted.

• 11:49Speaker 03

  Let me explain why this is exactly what Burns wanted. By wreaking havoc, Big Jim's planting the seed that maybe they won't get any of their money back. So it'd be best if they just settled. All he has to do now is wait for them to cave.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  As Burns is causing chaos in bankruptcy meetings, there's even more legal trouble brewing for Bond. And it goes back to a painting Bond acquired in 1983, the iconic La Promenade. It's incredibly famous, a stunning piece by the French artist Edouard Manet. But Bondi? Well, at the time he first acquires it, he's still getting his head around all this art stuff.

• 12:33Speaker 05

  He hires a new personal assistant called David Michael, who's a very erudite Englishman. And he brings Michael into the boardroom where the thing's hanging, and he says, what do you think of my Monet? And Michael says, it's a Manet. And Bondi says, how do you know? He says, well, it's La Promenade, and it's famous.

• 12:54Speaker 03

  It's an easy mistake to make that Manet did cost a lot of money. But why is Bond getting in trouble with the law over a painting? Well, I'll let Paul Barry explain this one.

• 13:06Speaker 05

  Bond Corporation and its shareholders pay the lease, which is quite a lot of money. And they pay it for about 10 years. And at the end of it, Bond Corporation has the right to buy the painting, which is now at a knockdown price compared with what it's worth. But Bondi forgets to tell Bond Corporation that they have the right to buy it, and he buys it himself through his private company, and then sells it at auction in New York for $17 million. So he makes a $15 million profit that should have gone to Bond Corporation. And Bond Corporation shareholders never get told that they have missed out on this $15 million.

• 13:43Speaker 03

  Once again, there's one set of rules for Bondi and another for everyone else. Or so he thought.

• 13:54Speaker 03

  In June 1993, Alan Bond is charged with four counts of fraud over the La Promenade purchase. And Bondi is not happy, not happy at all. He's just had open-heart surgery. And taking a leaf out of the Christopher Skyes playbook, he comes up with a long list of reasons to try and get out of going to trial.

• 14:16Speaker 05

  Bond had had bypass surgery, double bypass, and he claimed that in the course of that, I think oxygen had been cut off to his brain, and therefore he was brain damaged.

• 14:25Speaker 03

  You'll be relieved to know that brain damage doesn't impede his ability to drive his Rolls Royce around.

• 14:31Speaker 04

  Alan Bond is suffering severe anxiety, depression, and certainly isn't fit to stand trial, so says Mr Bond's defence lawyers.

• 14:40Speaker 03

  So says Bond's psychologist, too. According to Dr Watson Munro, Mr Bond suffered on occasions from significant memory loss, body spasms, had difficulty planning ahead, and had thought about suicide. For a man who had once run a company which employed 45,000 people, Mr Bond, he said, would now find it difficult to run the cornerstone. Bondi's got a lot going on. Not only is he facing these fraud charges over the Manet painting, Bond's also being cross-examined in a Sydney court over those pesky bankruptcy proceedings. And he's running the same memory loss defence.

• 15:20Speaker 03

  Professional Bond watcher, Paul Barry, is there keeping a close eye on the sickly Bond.

• 15:27Speaker 05

  Bond is sitting in the dock, staring into space, clutching his sandwiches, which he's brought for lunch, and he looks a very sorry side. He's being cross-examined by Francis Douglas QC. And Francis Douglas will say, I put it to you, Mr Bond, that, you know, these companies were set up in the Jersey to hide your money. And Bond looks into space for a bit and goes, I'm sorry, can you ask that question again? I didn't get it. This money, 2.75 million, is paid into your account in London. What did you do with the money? Oh, sorry, I can't remember that at all. I don't remember it. I don't, where is Jersey? I don't remember anything about it.

• 16:08Speaker 03

  Bondi's claiming his memory loss is so bad, he doesn't even recognise people he's known for 30 years. So Paul Barry decides to test that out, see if he recognises the journalist he detests. One day, as Bond's walking into court, Paul confronts him on the street in what's become an iconic moment in Australian journalism history.

• 16:31Speaker 05

  We have two cameras, one on him and one on me. I circle around and approach him from behind him so that I can be seen by the camera as I come up.

• 16:39Speaker 03

  Paul's trying to goad Bondi into a reaction, trying to catch him on camera, knowing exactly who Paul is, and proving Bondi's memory is as sharp as ever.

• 16:50Speaker 05

  And I presented my business card, and I say so. Mr Bond, Paul Barry from Four Corners, do you remember me?

• 16:57Speaker 03

  Bondi takes the bait.

• 16:59Speaker 05

  And he's just outraged, and he stamps on my card. I'll ask you how the case is going.

• 17:04Speaker 04

  Keep right away from me.

• 17:05Speaker 05

  You do remember me, then?

• 17:06Speaker 04

  Keep right away from me.

• 17:08Speaker 05

  I'm offering you an interview on Four Corners. And he reacted just absolutely perfectly, you know, quite clearly. Not a man with brain damage, at least not a man as far as remembering me was concerned.

• 17:18Speaker 03

  And then something else comes to light, something that proves Bondi is just fine, that it's all a performance to get out of his legal and financial troubles.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  We had had him under surveillance for some time. We knew that that was just an act, and it wasn't really what was going on.

• 17:35Speaker 03

  But it's not just the surveillance Bondi should be worried about. Tim Phillips is the lead investigator for the Australian Federal Police, and he's got an ace up his sleeve, a big one.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  We had an insider in the Bond camp, and they had been providing us with a lot of intelligence, a lot of information about what was happening inside the house and the office.

• 17:57Speaker 03

  The Bond camp has a mole, and Alan is oblivious, like genuinely, not pretend memory loss oblivious.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  They were able to provide us with faxes and rubbish that was being thrown away in the house so that we could see some of the negotiations that were happening. We could see that there were empty tablet shells. He'd been taking medication called Serapax. It had been supplied by someone in his entourage illegally. That made him look very ill and uncoordinated and slurry speech and become ashen-faced and have no energy.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  Serapax is not recommended for legitimate businessmen. Side effects include appearing dodgy. If court proceedings persist, consult your lawyer. Then, one day in court, Tim's ears prick up.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  His psychiatrist mentioned the fact that he'd been travelling backwards and forwards to an island off Mackay up near Hamilton Island called St Bee's to rest and recover.

• 19:01Speaker 03

  Rest and recover on a beautiful island off the Queensland coast. Something smells fishy, and it's not just the local yacht club.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  I jumped on a plane the next morning, flew to Mackay, chartered a helicopter over to the island, met with Lionel Burke and his son.

• 19:18Speaker 03

  Lionel Burke and his son are the owners of St Bee's, and they confirm Tim's suspicions. Bondi's there doing business. He wants to buy the island and sell it to some Russian investors. Uh-oh.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  They provided us with phone records showing an enormous number of phone calls from the island to Russia, doing business 12 hours a day.

• 19:45Speaker 03

  Well, maybe he's just lonely and housebound. That doesn't prove anything.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  They had photos and video of him running down the beach and bushwalking and swimming and pushing a boat out into the water off the sand.

• 19:58Speaker 03

  All right, lock him up. The Burkes put all this into a sworn statement and fly to Perth as witnesses in Bond's hearing.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  And they gave evidence to the magistrate, who said, he's obviously well enough to stand trial.

• 20:11Speaker 03

  Bondi's sickly performance fails to land him an Oscar and fails to stop the La Promenade fraud trial from going ahead. But don't hold your breath, it won't start for another three years.

• 20:28Speaker 03

  In the meantime, the AFP's Tim Phillips keeps on investigating. And how's this for irony? The feds have set up shop on the accounting floor of the old Bond Corp tower. It's chock a block full of thousands of documents seized under warrant, and Tim's trawling through them all, looking for evidence of corporate wrongdoing, when he uncovers another bombshell.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  The one transaction that we ultimately focused on was the Bell Cash Strip.

• 20:56Speaker 03

  The Bell Cash Strip? Hubba hubba. Remember when Bond bought the Bell Group from his rival, Robert Holmes Accord, back in 1988? Well, here's the rub. Turns out Bondi had, yet again, an ulterior motive.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Bell Resources had $1.4 billion sitting in a Swiss bank account, and that was what made them a target. That's...

• 21:19Speaker 06

  The reason why Bond Corporation and Alan Bond and his team looked towards Bell Resources because of that enormous amount of cash.

• 21:27Speaker 03

  That stash becomes a kind of personal bank for Alan Bond. Right from day one, he starts stripping out cash from Bell's accounts to cover Bond Corporation's debts.

• 21:39Speaker 06

  The Bell cash strip, in effect, stole $1.4 billion from about 60,000 investors in Australia.

• 21:48Speaker 03

  Tim and his AFP colleagues know they're on to something explosive here, but they need another insider to spill the beans, someone in Alan's most inner sanctum. Tim Phillips hones in on a man called David Aspinall. David's a former board member of both Bond Corp and the Bell Group. There's no way he could have missed what's been going on, so Tim gets an arrest warrant for David.

• 22:15Speaker 06

  I called David Aspinall and told him that I'd like him to come and see me at the Perth Watchhouse to be arrested and processed.

• 22:23Speaker 03

  Just a few minutes later, Tim gets a call from David Aspinall's lawyer, none other than the tough-as-nails Julie Bishop, future Minister for Foreign Affairs. She says, is it too late to do a deal? And Tim replies, it's never too late to do a deal. And so the former board member Aspinall goes turncoat.

• 22:44Speaker 06

  He came in, he sweated profusely in the time we had him. You know, we had an ambulance on standby just in case he had a heart attack. He just looked so unwell. He and Bond had had a bit of a falling out, I suspect, and he just chose to save himself rather than save Alan Bond. And so over the next two very long days, he proceeded to just explain everything that happened.

• 23:11Speaker 03

  David Aspinall takes Tim back to the very day in August 88 that Bond bought the Bell Group from Robert Holmes Accord.

• 23:18Speaker 06

  On that day, they shift $500 million out of a Swiss credit institution and move it to Perth Merchant Bank, which had actually only been set up two weeks before. It had been set up purely for the purpose of facilitating the transfer of the funds.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  And it doesn't stop there. Bondi just keeps on stripping cash out of Bell, and according to Paul Barry, uses it for all sorts of things.

• 23:47Speaker 05

  Bond managed to get hold of that money and basically steal it or use it to try and prop up Bond Corporation. And some of it went to his private company Dalhold and then out the back door of Dalhold. So it went in horses and properties and gifts to the family. I mean, it was the biggest fraud in Australian history.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  Well, Bondi always did like to be number one. Careful what you wish for. Bondi ends up stripping more than $1 billion out of the Bell Group. And by January 1995, after a very long and very expensive investigation, Tim Phillips has enough evidence to prove it. He arrests and charges Alan Bond and two Bond Corp executives with the biggest corporate fraud in Australian history.

• 24:35Speaker 06

  We took him to the counter and removed all of his shoelaces and belts and he had a wallet with him that was full of cards and other things. And I, we got to the Chairman's Club Lounge card for Ansett Airlines, as it was then. And I picked it up and I looked him in the eyes and I said, I don't imagine you'll need this much longer. And he just, he looked at his feet and grunted and didn't say anything more. It was, it was quite a moment, actually. It really resonated with me because I still remembered him in that image of standing in front of Australia Two, telling them to raise it out of the water to see the wind keel. And here he was now, a very meek chap, actually.

• 25:19Speaker 03

  The boxing kangaroo has officially put down its gloves.

• 25:25Speaker 03

  After a brief spell in the lockup, Alan Bond is released on bail. And as he walks out of the Perth Watchhouse, the dread sets in. If he thought he was in trouble before, well, he's about to enter a whole new world of pain. He's facing two criminal trials, one for La Promenade and one for the Bell Cash Strip. If he's found guilty of either, it'll be straight back to the slammer for what could be a very long time.

• 25:57Speaker 03

  His only solace is that his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Diana Bliss, is back in the picture. Not long after his divorce from Eileen, Alan and Diana rekindled their romance, and they've been inseparable ever since. And with Bondi's future so uncertain, they don't want to waste any more time. So on Easter Sunday, 1995, Alan marries Diana. He literally wedded Bliss.

• 26:25Speaker 04

  It was a discreet affair, veiled in secrecy and a far cry from the plush opulence of Bond's flashy days of the 1980s. And the newlyweds emerged clearly in the throes of wedded bliss. He'll be hoping his comeback will be as smooth and efficient as his wedding.

• 26:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, good luck with that, Alan. Regardless, Diana is clear that no matter what happens, she'll stand by her man.

• 26:49Speaker 07

  I was very aware of the problems we had to face. I had my eyes wide open and my feet firmly planted on the ground about that. And I knew that as a couple, we could get through it together. I will still stand by him. Really, in life, it's not where you start, it's where you finish.

• 27:12Speaker 03

  Luckily, just before they tied the knot, Bondi had a big win.

• 27:19Speaker 03

  The bankruptcy trustee, Robert Ramsay, has spent years and $3.5 million trying to claw back the money Bond owes. But they've hit a brick wall at every turn. And now Bond's creditors are over it. And reluctantly, they agree to a deal.

• 27:38Speaker 05

  Bond, basically, he offers Dalhold liquidated $7 million on debts of $500. And he offers Ramsay $1.65 million on debts of $600. So we're talking about a cent in the dollar for the private company and roughly a tenth of a cent in the dollar after expenses for the bankruptcy.

• 27:59Speaker 03

  It's a pathetic offer, but the creditors have weighed up their options. This looks like it'll be their only chance to get literally anything back. The bankruptcy trustee, Robert Ramsay, is livid. He is so close to finding more money.

• 28:16Speaker 05

  And Ramsay doesn't want to settle. And Ramsay writes this long letter to creditors saying, look, I've found this and I've found this and I've found this. All I need is a bit more money and I can go after him and I'll get it. But the creditors are tired and they basically think, well, let's just, let's just settle. And so they settle.

• 28:34Speaker 03

  Victorious, corporate street fighter Big Jim accompanies Bond to the settlement meeting.

• 28:40Speaker 05

  Burns parks his roller on the double yellow line outside the meeting room. And they come out two hours later, Bondi and him. And they drive off with grin as broad as Broad Street.

• 28:53Speaker 03

  Put plainly, it's a big F you to the people Bond owes money to and to the bankruptcy system.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  The former head of the National Companies and Securities Commission has called for a tightening of the bankruptcy laws. I think we need to go back and look at our laws on a national basis again and ensure that in future, people cannot drive Rolls Royces at the same time as paying one cent in the dollar to their creditors.

• 29:19Speaker 05

  The laws don't work, is essentially the message. If you're rich enough and have enough nerve and enough of an asshole, you can basically not pay your creditors anything.

• 29:32Speaker 03

  Bondi might be free from the claws of the bankruptcy trustee, but despite his best efforts to stop the La Promenade fraud trial going ahead, the day finally comes for Bond to stand trial again. He does so, and on the 16th of August, 1996, the district court judge delivers her verdict.

• 29:54Speaker 07

  Bond was found guilty of four company fraud charges relating to transactions involving the French impressionist painting La Promenade.

• 30:01Speaker 00

  Alan Bond appeared unmoved by the verdict, but his wife Diana, who has been in court every day of the trial, put her head in her hands in obvious distress. Bond, if there was anything you'd like to say about your name?

• 30:14Speaker 03

  We've got nothing to say at all. Just a day later, his sentence is handed down. Alan Bond is going back to jail for three years. But even when sentencing him to prison, the judge still has some kind words for Alan.

• 30:29Speaker 05

  Say all that stuff about him being a national hero and a great employer and a great leader and all this shit is bizarre. He's shown great remorse and, you know, he's done great things for the country or blah, blah, blah, et cetera, et cetera.

• 30:40Speaker 03

  Regardless, it's official. Alan Bond is going back to the slammer. Bond's only been in jail for a few months when he's whisked back to court to stand trial again, this time in the Supreme Court over fraudulently stripping money out of the Bell Group. But when the big day comes, it's a very different Alan Bond sitting in the stand.

• 31:05Speaker 00

  Bond pleaded guilty to orchestrating the biggest corporate fraud in Australian history.

• 31:09Speaker 05

  Alan Bond is a contrite and remorseful man. Bond unreservedly apologised. He wanted to make constructive and healing efforts in the community to undo the harm he's done.

• 31:19Speaker 03

  Okay, now I genuinely think Alan is losing his memory. He's forgotten his own personality. Remarkably, once again, the sentence is surprisingly lenient.

• 31:29Speaker 00

  Alan Bond was sentenced to four years jail after he pleaded guilty to defrauding Bell Resources of $1.2 billion. The four-year term was a shock to the public's confidence in the system and was manifestly inadequate.

• 31:42Speaker 03

  Doesn't seem like much for a guy behind the biggest corporate fraud in Australian history. And also Quinton Beresford says people are pissed.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  This country has treated these white-collar criminals incredibly lightly. And for stealing effectively more than $1 billion out of the pockets of ordinary Australian mums and dads shareholders, there was an indigenous kid in the Northern Territory jailed for the same period of time for pinching chocolate. The disjuncture between those two sentences is just so stark. It just goes to show that one of the reasons we've had a continuing string of corporate scandals in Australia is that we just don't

• 32:31Speaker 03

  Treat these white collar criminal behaviour seriously enough. And I think Bond is the exemplar of that problem.

• 32:40Speaker 03

  But seven years is seven years. Bondi moves back and forwards between the low security prison farm and the maximum security Kasurina Prison. Kasurina is hardcore. He's locked up with murderers and drug kingpins and he's attacked twice. Once, another inmate reckons Alan's been on the phone for too long. I mean, we know he used to call Russia for hours on end. So the guy attacks from behind, strangling Alan with the phone cord. And it's pretty awful for Diana, too. Visits are limited and emotional. She's taunted by other visitors and prisoners. It's a terrible time.

• 33:21Speaker 03

  But credit where credit's due, Bondi decides he's going to make the most of this downtime. He enrolls in a fine arts degree and takes up painting. It's a full circle moment for the former sign writer turned art buyer. And no joke, he runs information sessions for prisoners on business ethics. He gives free financial advice and daily stock market tips. Certainly gives new meaning to the term insider trading. It sounds like Bondi's settled into prison life, no doubt helped by Diana's support.

• 33:58Speaker 00

  The way I feel about Alan is that Alan has faced up to his responsibilities. He has gone through the enormous battle of trials. And Alan is a strong man, a positive man, of great character. He's a good man and my opinion of him will never change.

• 34:18Speaker 03

  And this is the great conundrum of Alan Bond, the duality of the man, the public versus the private. Those who knew him intimately loved him. They're just lucky they never had to do business with him. And it helps explain why the women in his life put up with what they did, why Diana came back to Alan, why ex-wife Eileen stood staunchly by him despite multiple fraud convictions and a fallen empire.

• 34:47Speaker 03

  One year, two years, three. And before we know it, it's March 2000. And Bondi's a bit dirty that he missed out on all those new millennium celebrations. But in a stroke of good luck, it's looking like he might get out of jail in time to watch the Sydney Olympics. Because in the background, Bond's legal team has been doing some serious hustling. They've been in and out of court, pushing for a reduced sentence on a technicality only a very rich person could afford to pay an army of lawyers to find. And knock me over with a feather, they find it. After serving just three years of his seven year sentence, on a blisteringly hot day

• 35:32Speaker 03

  in March, 62-year-old Alan Bond walks free. Bond's wife, Diana Bliss, arrived at the prison this morning to collect her husband, but found the wheels of justice moving slowly. Diana waits all day and so does the media scrum, standing in the searing heat, until finally, just before 5pm, Alan Bond steps through the prison gates, a free man. Emotionally drained, delighted to be free, though reluctant to talk.

• 36:02Speaker 06

  Well, I feel, I mean, it's great to be released and I'm just going to spend some time now and try and sort of get my life back together.

• 36:12Speaker 03

  Alan and Diana retreat to their beachside home in Cotterlow. And astoundingly, despite being bankrupt and spending years in jail, Bondi's still reportedly worth $70 million. Unbelievable. That money he's squirreled away for a rainy day is coming in very handy. But you know what they say, money can't buy happiness. And just as Alan is settling into life on the outside, the unthinkable happens.

• 36:45Speaker 00

  Alan Bond, the former high flyer, is today grieving over the death of his eldest daughter Suzanne. Suzanne Bond was 41. She leaves behind an 18-month-old son, Charlie.

• 36:57Speaker 03

  It is devastating news and the Bond family is crushed. It's later revealed that Suzanne's death was an accidental overdose.

• 37:12Speaker 03

  Bond rarely talks about the death of his beloved daughter, but he later writes about it in his autobiography, about the unfathomable loss of losing a child. Then, in time, he starts channeling his energy back into doing what he loves best, wheeling and dealing.

• 37:31Speaker 05

  He ran a terrible thing called the UK Money Centre, which was kind of a sort of payday lender that had a lot of complaints about it. And he went looking for mines all over the world, gold mines and diamond mines and whatever. And I chased one of those mines in Lesotho in South Africa. It was a diamond mine and it looked like he was going to make a fortune. And he got a whole bunch of his mates to come in with him and then he dudded them. So he was, he continued to do the sort of things that he'd been doing before, basically. He, he loved the deal.

• 38:02Speaker 03

  Well, what can you say? A leopard can't change its spots. Despite desperately trying to reignite the glory days, Bondi's heady years of billion-dollar business deals are done. Out of the spotlight, he's a dad, a grandfather, a past hero trotted out every few years in memory of the America's Cup.

• 38:25Speaker 03

  And then in 2012, life takes another serious turn. Alan's wife, Diana Bliss, has been living with depression for many years. Things were very tough for Diana when Bondi was in jail. The trauma and shame, the judgment, being separated from the man she loved. And now, all these years later, her melancholia is lingering and it all comes to a head. This is her brother Peter, speaking on the ABC's Australian Story.

• 38:56Speaker 04

  She wasn't answering emails or phone calls or anything. She'd become totally reclusive. Most of the time, unfortunately, she wouldn't get out of bed, wouldn't get out, have a shower, wouldn't eat and was just obviously anxious and obviously distressed in a deep, dark place.

• 39:15Speaker 03

  Alan's unsure how to handle this. He's always pushed through stress by chasing the next big deal, by keeping busy. But after Diana attempts to take her own life, she checks into a mental health facility. It seems to help and Alan heads off on a business trip. When he gets back, he brings Diana home on a 48-hour visit. Diana's friend Joanna tells Australian Story that everyone's feeling hopeful.

• 39:43Speaker 00

  And Alan just took her straight to the hairdresser and went and bought her some clothes and took her out for lunch. And then they went home and, and the next day, as usual, Alan went to the gym and when he got home, she was gone.

• 40:02Speaker 00

  The 57-year-old theatre producer took her own life following a battle with depression. Mr. Bond says his wife's illness would not let her see the beauty of the world.

• 40:13Speaker 03

  For decades, Diana was Alan's one true love. She'd stayed by his side during those years in prison amid all the uncertainty, been there when his name was mud. And now, at the age of 74, Alan Bond is alone.

• 40:34Speaker 03

  As Alan mourns Diana's loss, he only steps out occasionally for a public appearance or one of the dwindling number of parties held in his honour. But he's lost his sparkle, that easy, larrikin grin.

• 40:48Speaker 06

  There's no easy answer. You just have to learn to live with it. First 12 months was awful, put it bluntly. It's, it still will take some time.

• 40:57Speaker 00

  Did it break you?

• 40:59Speaker 06

  Almost, almost. It's something that I'm getting over it, but I'm not over it yet.

• 41:08Speaker 03

  By 2015, Alan's struggling with his own health. He needs heart surgery again, this time to repair a faulty valve. But there are complications during the procedure. And on the 5th of June, 2015, Alan Bond, national hero, the man who'd achieved the impossible, winning the America's Cup, our boldest corporate cowboy, the billionaire behind one of the biggest cases of corporate fraud in Australian history, dies at age 77.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  He was known as both a hero and a villain during his life, but today Alan Bond was remembered as an unforgettable, persistent and generous man.

• 41:51Speaker 03

  His children, including his eldest son, John, address the media.

• 41:55Speaker 00

  Dad was a larger-than-life character who started with nothing and did so much. He really did experience the highs and lows of life. He's had a great influence on many people who will all miss him very much.

• 42:08Speaker 03

  There's an outpouring of messages. Even former Prime Minister Bob Hawke reflects on Bond's contributions to Australia, but also his shortcomings.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  Bond had some black spots. He caused a lot of hardship to a lot of people. There is no doubt that as a result of his criminal activities, people were hurt. And it would be absolutely stupid not to put that on the record, but let's remember the great thing he did for this country. And other corporate crooks fled the country. He started Fiest the Music.

• 42:40Speaker 03

  And that's something people still say about Alan Bond, that he accepted the consequences of his actions and did his time. Whether that time was sufficient is open to debate. People remember him as a lovable rogue, remember his achievements and contributions. But there are many who see him differently, like the people he stiffed out of hundreds of millions of dollars, the small investors who lost everything, and the Tuva's leaseholders, the hundreds of pub owners who lost their livelihoods. And in the case of Reg Lynch, lost his life because of the ruthless decisions Alan Bond made. All of these things are true.

• 43:22Speaker 03

  Alan Bond is a man with a complicated legacy, a man who helped put Australia on the map, who achieved greatness and then lost it all. A man who crushed many on his way to the top and on his fall to the bottom. And in the city that made him and ultimately broke him, there's a constant reminder of Bondi, an obelisk, the hotel Alan built by the sea, Observation City, still the lone high-rise on Perth's coastline. Like our Bondi, one of a kind.

• 44:02Speaker 03

  If this episode has raised any concerns for you, you can call Lifeline on 131114.

• 44:11Speaker 03

  And that's the final episode in Bondi from hero to zero. If you've enjoyed the series, why not tell a friend? And if you didn't, keep it to yourself. It's an ABC Rewind production for Radio National, produced on the lands of the Naluma, Gadigal, Jodhjuk Warring and the Wuruk people of the Ngunnaw nation. Our executive producer is Claudia Taranto, script editor Kirsty Melville, producers Jake Morecambe and Andrea Mays, sound engineer Matthew Sigley, composer of our theme, Emre S. Cronin. Our editor is Michelle Rayner and I'm Mark Humphries.

• 44:56Speaker 04

  You've been listening to an ABC podcast. You can discover more ABC podcasts, live radio and exclusives on the ABC listener.