Andrew Stathis

Andreas Stathopolous (born 1952), who went by the name of Andrew Stathis, was a Greek-born Australian businessman who was alleged to have stolen some $19 million from Bishopsgate Insurance when he took control of that company in 1982. He fled and was sentenced to life in jail in Greece on drug charges before he could face court in Australia.

Stathis came to Australia at the age of 2 with his parents, grew up in Blayney, and went to the exclusive Cranbrook School in Sydney and then the Cowra High School when his family moved to Cowra to run a cafe. After returning from studying law at university he ran the Cowra Coachman motel though without much success and his mother was later bankrupted over a guarantee of his debts which she gave to Tooheys Limited brewers.

Somehow over time he obtained a few million dollars. Perhaps it was from drug operations since he and associates were in 1979 committed to stand trial over some $60 million worth of marijuana. Surprisingly, and perhaps disturbingly, that case was somehow forgotten or lost within the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and it never proceeded beyond a mention in 1983 (after he'd fled Australia).

In any case, in 1982 Stathis owned 25% of commodity broker Richardson Mann and approached the recently floated P&O Australia to buy the Bishopsgate Insurance company from them. Bishopsgate was a respected general insurer, but an unexciting one and P&O had wanted to sell it for quite some time. Stathis told them Richardson Mann was the buyer, but in fact it was himself. The price was $4.75m to be paid in installments, with payment guaranteed by the ANZ Bank (so P&O weren't concerned by exactly who was buying).

In the usual way of an insurance company, Bishopsgate had quite a large pool of investments ready to pay current or future claims under insurance policies written. Stathis transferred control of those assets from BT Australia to himself and it seems simply cashed in as much as he could. The first alleged theft was a mere fortnight after taking control of the company and over a period of eight months he misapproprated some $27.5m, and repaid $8.5m for a net $19m taken.

Stathis was a big gambler and fancied himself a commodities trader. Of the money he took it seems some $4.5m was lost on gold and silver futures trading in the US and another $1m on gold in Australia. Some $6.7m was probably transferred out of Australia without Reserve Bank approval, which was in itself an offence at that time.

Bishopsgate had to make quarterly reports to the Insurance Commissioner and in July 1982 the commissioner became suspicious of a deficiency and sent an investigator to the company. He was hindered by Stathis having taken records out of the office and made little progress. Stathis presumably realized the gig was up and on 9 August 1982 he took a flight to Paris, never to return.

Bishopsgate was left insolvent and in the end creditors got about 25 or 30 cents in the dollar. In 1987 Stathis turned up in Pireaus with 23 kilos of heroin in a suitcase and was sentenced to life imprisonment there, so charges against him in Australia were never brought. One of the more disturbing aspects of Bishopsgate was quite how a man with Stathis' doubtful past could gain control on an insurance company and hence assets which are meant to be primarily for the benefit of policyholders.

References

* Trevor Sykes, "The Bold Riders", second edition, 1996, ISBN 1-86448-184-6.