Michael Dunjey: Prosecutor seeks to shield witnesses as Ascent Investments promoter faces fraud charges

Federal prosecutors fear that alleged fraudster Michael Dunjey is trying to discourage former clients from engaging in an Australian Securities and Investments Commission investigation. Prosecutor Lindsay Glenn told the Perth Magistrates Court on Friday that Mr Dunjey’s supporters from a South Perth church had sent a petition to ASIC and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions about the investment promoter’s case. Mr Glenn said ASIC was concerned “about the welfare of investors should the petitioners make contact on behalf of the accused”. He made the claims at Mr Dunjey’s first appearance on 23 fraud charges and 10 Corporations Act charges, laid after a four-year ASIC investigation into his failed Ascent Investment and Life Coaching fund. The prosecution team successfully sought conditions limiting Mr Dunjey from contacting a list of people connected to the matter and preventing him going near an international departure point. Mr Glenn argued Mr Dunjey was a flight risk, having sought permission from his bankruptcy trustee to travel overseas and asking for his passport to be returned so he could work in Singapore. The investment promoter had travelled extensively — including to the US, India and Israel — and had people in those locations who could provide him with support, the prosecutor claimed. Mr Dunjey is accused of fraudulently obtaining a benefit related to more than $4 million of investor funds. He was accused of five Corporations Act charges of failing to act in good faith relating to $2.5m. Mr Glenn told the court that $2.5m was taken away from clients as Mr Dunjey failed to act in their best interest. He also faces five charges of falsifying books. Mr Dunjey now lives in Victoria with his family. Ascent Investments was put into liquidation in 2023 and Deloitte’s Sean Holmes remains in control of the business. More than 300 creditors claimed about $194 million between them from the wreckage, according to a report lodged by liquidators with the regulator. The final total has not been verified. Ascent’s assets were valued at less than $1m. That report also showed about 17 properties linked to Mr Dunjey had been sold and another 12 were expected to hit the market at the time. Ascent started operations in 2007 as a life coaching business but pivoted to investment in 2010. Mr Dunjey spent part of his childhood at a Baptist mission in Pakistan and later sought to become the first Western Australian to climb Mt Everest. That bid ended when he almost lost his fingers to frostbite less than a day’s climb from the summit.