Vaucluse house of alleged tax fraud masterminds up for grabs

The Vaucluse house owned by the alleged masterminds behind Australia’s largest tax fraud, Adam Cranston and Jay Onley, is to be sold mortgagee-in-possession after it was reclaimed by the bank.

The three-bedroom house was just one of a handful of properties bought by Cranston and his nominated companies in a 2015 property spree now being forcibly sold off as he awaits trial for his role in what is dubbed Australia’s largest white-collar crime case.

Cranston is one of the alleged key players behind the Plutus Payroll syndicate accused of misappropriating more than $130 million owed to the Australian Tax Office from pay-as-you-go payments.

The three-bedroom house on 450 square metres is listed mortgagee-in-possession with the bank ordering no price guide but to be sold by LJ Hooker Double Bay’s David Malouf.

It last traded for $2.4 million in 2015.

It was originally bought in a company name of Harmon International Holdings, set up by Cranston’s sister Lauren, in 2014, and later transferred to Four Macdonald Pty Ltd, co-owned by Cranston and his co-conspirator, former snowboarding champion and Foxtel commentator Onley.

Title records show the NSW Supreme Court ordered the sale of the property after federal police applied for a court order under the proceeds of crime legislation.

Following an eight-month federal police investigation into the alleged conspiracy, Cranston was arrested two years ago, and his assets seized and finances frozen.

At the time Cranston was arrested at the Bondi Beach townhouse he shared with his wife Elizabeth Rouhliadeff that was also part of the 2015 buying spree, picked up for $1.222 million.

It sold earlier this year for $1.3 million.

The Vaucluse house is just the latest in a string of forced property sell-offs by court order owned or linked to Cranston.

Among them is a half-built house in the Sutherland Shire bought by Cranston and his then-girlfriend, Rouhliadeff, in 2015 for $1.875 million.

The 930-square-metre site in Burraneer was a construction site at the time it was sold after the brick house was knocked down to make way for a two-storey dwelling with a pool and basement, which was approved in 2015.

Records show it sold for $2.425 million under the hammer in March last year.

An almost 60-hectare horse and cattle farm in the Hunter Valley village of Vacy bought for $940,000 in 2016 was sold a year later for $1.086 million.

And a three-bedroom investment property in Miranda bought in 2016 for $1.415 million sold a year later for $1.88 million.