Berndale Securities finance boss Daniel Kirby jailed over dishonest conduct

The charges were laid two years after a lengthy public examination in the Federal Court in 2020 by Berndale’s liquidators.

Those examinations revealed an extraordinary tale of missing money from Swiss bank accounts and Berndale’s collection of high-end cars, including McLarens and Porsches, and unusual property investments.

The examinations also revealed how Berndale, which was formerly known as Forex TG, was linked to a number of other international trading schemes that stood accused of misusing investor money. This included that one of Forex TG’s former directors was Yossi Herzog, a man who is wanted in the US on securities fraud.

Another man, Aviv Talmor, who was Kirby and D’Amore’s business partner at Forex TG and later Berndale, is serving a five-year sentence in Israel over his involvement in a dodgy trading scheme.

During the examinations, Kirby explained that the group had borrowed money from underworld figure and Gatto confidant Angelo “Fat Ange” Venditti to assist in paying its legal fees.

There is no suggestion that Venditti or Gatto were in any way involved in the operation of Berndale, just that they socialised with D’Amore and Venditti provided financial assistance to the group.

In sentencing Kirby, Justice Wendy Abraham said the offences showed “an ongoing deliberate disregard by Mr Kirby for responsibilities he held and the trust reposed in him, given his position in the business”.

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She added that Mr Kirby “deliberately undermined an audit process to bypass a regulatory measure designed to protect consumers”.

“Offences of this nature undermine the integrity of the Australian financial markets and system of corporate regulation, and erode the confidence of participants in the commercial world,” she said.

“Victims of this type of crime are not confined to those who directly suffer through loss of their funds but extend to the investing public at large.”

Despite Kirby being criminally charged, ASIC never sought orders banning him from working in the finance sector.

Last year this masthead revealed that Kirby was legally back at work in the world of finance, working for a Sydney-based group called Summit Auto Trading.