AUSTRALIA: Four 'Swindled' Australian farmers driven to poverty

. MANAMA, Bahrain (Gulf Daily News), September 6, 2008: By Geoffrey Bew FOUR Australian farmers allegedly defrauded out of BD610,800 in a dodgy business by four Bahrainis could be pushed into poverty unless the case is resolved soon, it has been claimed. They have already taken their claim for compensation to one of the richest men in the world, after writing to Microsoft chairman Bill Gates in a desperate attempt to resolve the case. The alleged victims say they entered into a bond agreement in March 2005 and were supposed to get their investment back within three months, plus a sizeable bonus payment. But they say they are still trying to recover their money more than three years later. The farmers earlier filed criminal proceedings in Bahrain after taking legal advice and plan to pursue a civil case for compensation if they secure convictions. However, the Public Prosecution is reportedly still examining the paperwork. One alleged victim, who did not want to be named, said he had been forced to move in with his 86-year-old mother, who is suffering from poor health, after losing his farm. He said he lost the farm, which had been in his family for three generations, in January last year, as a result of the business deal,. The 50-year-old said he had run the farm successfully for 20 years after taking over the business when his father died. "I feel like I have let the whole family down and there is a lot of guilt and shame that goes along with it," he told the GDN by telephone from Victoria. "I am single and had got engaged, but when my fiancee realised how bad the situation was she left me. "My health has deteriorated and I think it is due to the stress I have been under because of the case. "I also lost my voice for two or three months, after we lost the farm." The farmer said that unless the case was resolved soon the group will probably never be able to recover, either financially or emotionally. "I am owed around 1.5 million Australian dollars (BD495,000) and even if I recovered that, I would not be able to buy a farm now because property prices have gone up so much," he said. "I am currently unemployed and have been trying to retrain myself but at my age, starting out in a completely new field having never done it before is not easy." Another alleged victim said he felt like a prisoner trapped and enslaved on his farm with no way out. "All the income that I scrape together is going in to paying the interest on the loan that I have been left with while the Bahraini company has our money," said the man from Warwick, Perth, Western Australia. The alleged fraud coincided with the worst Australian drought in 100 years and the farmer said this was making it hard for him to even keep up with the interest payments on the loan he took out to invest in the project. "There is a possibility that the bank will foreclose under fire sale conditions and I will be left with nothing and still be left with some debt that I cannot repay," said the victim. "But the sale of my property should not need to be considered if the Bahraini authorities act to have our money returned. Deal "I feel like not only has my money been stolen, but I have had my future and life's work stolen. "Every day is another day of torture." The drought was the main reason why he decided to sign up for the deal in the hope of improving his worsening finances. "They must be held accountable for the damage they have caused," he said of the Bahrainis involved. "They have our money and the evidence proves beyond doubt that they knew what the arrangement was and then failed to honour the agreement." All the farmers involved borrowed money from a bank to be part of the deal and claimed they could now be entitled to compensation totalling eight million Australian dollars (BD2.8m). That includes interest generated on the loans they took out, in addition to compensation for losing their farms as a result of the investment. The men were approached through a mutual friend in Australia to loan funds to a woman to help her company launch an "education city" in Bahrain. Their money was to be held in bond so if anything went wrong it could be liquidated and the farmers would receive their cash back. The GDN reported in July 2006 that the same company, which cannot be named for legal reasons, was at the heart of an international scam spanning three countries. It was said to have duped investors in the US, South Africa and Australia with phoney development projects. It was claimed the firm was facing legal action from a South African investment company for allegedly cheating it out of $100,000 (BD37,800) in a fake investment deal. Copyright © 2007 Gulf Daily News