Mark Francis McCabe of Roseville, NSW, was sentenced in the Downing Centre District Court at Sydney on 16 May 2025 to four years and three months’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of two years and six months for three fraud offences.
The former financial services director entered guilty pleas on 13 September 2024 to three offences of dishonestly obtaining a financial advantage by deception contrary to s192E(1)(b) of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), with a further four offences taken into account for sentencing.
Between January 2015 to April 2021, Mr McCabe dishonestly obtained a financial advantage from eight victims, seven of whom were clients of Guevara Capital Access Pty Ltd (GCA) and/or Online Trading Capital Pty Ltd (OTC) (both deregistered). Mr McCabe was sole director of both companies.
Mr McCabe made dishonest and deceptive representations to investors including that he (through GCA and/or OTC) would provide ― and had provided ― investors with access to foreign exchange trading accounts on a platform provided by a third party, along with access to “capital” (i.e. funds) in these accounts in specific amounts.
Contrary to the representations made to investors, Mr McCabe only provided investors “test” foreign exchange trading accounts which were not capable of placing real foreign exchange trades. Investors used these “test” accounts to conduct what they believed to be genuine trading; however, no actual trading took place.
Instead of using payments made by investors to pay for funded foreign exchange trading accounts, or to engage in trading on their behalf, Mr McCabe misappropriated the investors’ funds and used them for his own benefit to pay for business and personal expenses, such as rental payments, private school fees and various credit card purchases. The total financial advantage obtained by Mr McCabe was $940,350.
ASIC Deputy Chair, Sarah Court said, ‘The sentence imposed by the Court demonstrates the seriousness of Mr McCabe’s misconduct and sends a strong signal that will deter others from engaging in similar misconduct.’
When handing down the sentence, her Honour Judge David found the offending serious, characterising Mr McCabe’s conduct as ‘highly deceptive’. Her Honour noted the offending was ‘more than simply enticing people’ and that it was a ‘sophisticated 91AV that created the illusion of genuine trading.’
Judge David further found Mr McCabe had gained ‘trust from his victims’, ‘relied on his reputation’ and misled his victims to ‘feel their money was safe’. Further, Mr McCabe had engaged in ‘a form of psychological bullying’, engaged in manipulative and threatening behaviour [to cause his victims to] ‘take on illusory deals’ and encouraged his victims to trade ‘in a completely futile endeavour’.
In sentencing Mr McCabe, Judge David found the duration of offending, level of sophistication and the impact on victims elevated the objective seriousness of the offending. Judge David further found the impact on the victims was ‘significant’, ‘life changing’ and had caused ‘emotional’ and ‘financial devastation’.
The matter was prosecuted by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth) (CDPP) after an investigation and referral by ASIC.
Background
The maximum penalty for an offence of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception under s192E(1)(b) of the Crimes Act is 10 years' imprisonment and/or a fine of $110,000 (being 1000 penalty units at the current value of $110).