Pair turn tables on conman

JOHN GRAY: Led two Melbourne truckies up the garden path.

Relevant offers

Christchurch

Boarding house caters for primary pupils Crash survivor still wants to fly Rates to foot $21m bus bill Pregnant women given swine-flu jab Domestic-violence probe ends in chaos Reprieve for cash-strapped Christchurch centre Luck led to life on Earth + podcast Determination central to journey back to health More jobs face chop at Canterbury University Church leader not afraid of change

Christchurch's international conman, John Gray, is running out of places to hide.

Christchurch export John McCulloch Gray, 51, has duped high-flying business executives, business brokers and technical experts.

But he may have bitten off more than he can chew by leading two Melbourne truckies up the garden path.

Timaru-born Riki Hopkinson, 42, and Dave Foster, 38, from Melbourne, became entangled in Gray's web of deceit about eight weeks ago.

They had their revenge yesterday. They not only kicked him out of their rented house, they tipped off both the Sunday Age and The Press newspapers to his whereabouts in the hope others would be not be sucked into his orbit.

"We didn't want to just flick him out and then see him screw someone else. People need to know about him," Foster said.

When confronted by The Press in a Diggers Rest farmhouse near Melbourne yesterday, Gray denied he had told lies about his financial state or entered agreements he could not settle.

He may have been inaccurate in some of his claims, he said, but events yesterday had suggested his finances were back on track.

He blamed problems with bank accounts as being the cause of some of his problems.

As Hopkinson escorted Gray from his house, he told Gray: "How does it feel, John, to have ripped all those people off and to be done over by a couple of hicks?"

Gray left Christchurch in the 1980s after strife over buying expensive properties that he could not pay for. In those days, he posed as an SAS captain.

In the past 20 years he has, under various guises, chiselled money out of investors for bogus mining operations, for locked-up gold bullion shipments and dodgy property deals.

In the past five years he has signed deals in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, for assets ranging from oil-recycling companies to nightclubs, worth close to $500 million.

In 2005, Christchurch High Court judge John Hansen described Gray as an "awful man" and his business activities as "nefarious".

In November 2007, Gray was charged by the Mornington police in Melbourne with five counts of obtaining property and financial advantage by deception.

The charges related to renting two houses without paying, contracting to buy a $1.6m Moorooduc property and handing over a dud cheque for $162,000, renting $20,000 of furniture without paying and trying to buy an Audi and a Land Rover. The charges were dropped in January after prosecutors decided not to proceed.

Hopkinson and Foster did not know any of this when they took in Gray eight weeks ago.

Foster was driving back from Perth when he met Gray at a truck stop, where Gray spun a yarn that the trucking company he worked for had gone broke and left him stranded in Perth.

Foster took him back to Melbourne and gave him a bed for the night at the rural property Hopkinson rents near Melbourne Airport. Gray stayed on, eventually offering the two a piece of the action.

Foster gave up his regular job after Gray offered him a position at about NZ$1825 a week to operate a trucking business with a lucrative three-year Australian Post contract.

Gray also had big plans for Hopkinson, who was to be head of the Australian branch of Gray's genuinely registered company, Gray Geo Drilling Group International Pty Ltd.

"We thought our saviour had arrived," Hopkinson said.

"I knew it was too good to be true, but he made it sound so convincing. He was operating two BlackBerries and a laptop and was always on the phone."

Gray told them he was in Australia for "schooling", but also to merge about 20 companies into one unit. His story revolved around a superannuation fund of US$200m that had been tied up in a legal battle in Canada.

He produced documents purporting to show he was buying Bendigo drilling company Geotechnical Testing Services Pty Ltd for about NZ$1m and a 50-lot subdivision in Melton, near Melbourne. He gave both men cellphones and got Foxtel installed in each of their rooms.

Hopkinson was having bad toothache, so Gray paid for his dental treatment with cheques. The cheques bounced.

"He wanted me to have a nice set of teeth for my new job," said Hopkinson, a former bouncer who is missing a few teeth.

But when it came to handing out cash for food and rent, Gray was less than forthcoming. The self-proclaimed millionaire would sometimes contribute charity vouchers he got from the St Vincent de Paul centre.

Foster lost six weeks' wages before he found another job and Hopkinson is virtually skint after forking out for Gray's food bill and not receiving rent. Gray's rent cheque bounced.

Gray is employed driving trucks for Total Logistics Solutions, but the money seems to disappear.

"He is an eating machine. He eats a loaf of bread a day and drinks heaps of milk. I had to hide the kids' school lunch food in my bedroom to stop him eating it," Hopkinson said.

Geotechnical owner Norm Fieldew said yesterday he had never heard of Gray before Gray offered him about $1m for his company in June.

He Googled him and came up with last year's Press story exposing Gray.

"My face went white. I couldn't believe it," Fieldew said.

"Our solicitor was drawing up the contract and we put everything on hold. We didn't lose anything, but it was hugely emotionally draining.

"Rightly or wrongly, we were making plans and then this. I can't see what he gets out of it. He must be mad."