Four Gold Coast scammers ran a cold and heartless enterprise selling ineffective sports betting and investment software, fleecing victims of millions of dollars in 20 months.
Aaron Colin East, 41, his brother Daniel Alan East, 38, and Irishman Stiofan Ceitinn, 38, have admitted to two counts of fraud, while co-accused Theresa Faye Merlehan, 64, pleaded guilty to one fraud charge.
The four planned the cold-call scam in a systematic and thorough fashion, crown prosecutor Greg Cummings told a Brisbane District Court sentencing hearing on Monday.
"It was a cold and heartless enterprise, your honour, which took from vulnerable people with never any prospect of the money coming back to those people," he told Judge Vicki Loury.
The court heard victims paid $2.1 million over 20 months to buy software, convinced they could make $60,000 to $80,000 a year by using it for up to 15 minutes a week.
But this was a "complete fiction" and the software "completely ineffective", Mr Cummings said.
He said the victims could not afford the money and were motivated by desperation.
Some victims lost their superannuation, some their savings and "most, if not all, of course their self-esteem", he said.
Aaron East made $301,000 while steering the enterprise as a "controlling participant" between January 2014 and August 2015.
His brother made $282,000, while Ceitinn pocketed $230,000.
But there is no money to compensate the victims because only $17,000 was in the enterprise's bank account when it was shut down.
Mr Cumming told the court the scammers compiled an 80-page "spiel book" for sales employees, anticipating questions about the software being sold.
Call centre staff used false names and at times pretended to be in an office in Adelaide that did not exist.
Mr Cummings said there was no altruistic motivation for the fraud. Their desire to make money was at the heart of the scheme.
Merlehan had been working for the business before discovering the "true nature of the operation", her barrister Daniel Whitmore told the court.
She admitted to being involved in the scheme for about two months in 2015.
Merlehan, a Canadian citizen who moved to Australia about 20 years ago, and Dublin-born Ceitinn - who first came to Australia as a backpacker - are at risk of deportation after serving a jail sentence.
The hearing continues.
