Former finance director Brendan Gunn has been sentenced in the Local Court of NSW for dealing with over $180,000 when it was reasonable to suspect that those funds were proceeds of crime.
Mr Gunn was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment, to be released immediately upon entering into a recognizance of $3000 requiring he be of good behaviour for 12 months.
The funds were suspected of being proceeds of crime derived from an offshore cryptocurrency investment scam that targeted Australians.
The maximum sentence of imprisonment able to be imposed in a summary prosecution for this offence is 12 months.
From December 2018, Mr Gunn was a director of Mormarkets Pty Ltd, trading as Coinshype. Mormarkets received deposits from Australians for cryptocurrency and other purported investments.
Between January 2019 and May 2020, 22 separate bank accounts with six different financial institutions were opened in Mormarkets' name. On a number of occasions, banks informed Mr Gunn that they had received complaints that funds credited to Mormarkets accounts had been affected by fraud or other suspicious activity.
All accounts associated with Mormarkets were eventually closed by the banks.
When two of the Mormarkets bank accounts were closed, Mr Gunn received two bank cheques which included proceeds of investment amounts totalling $181,000. He then dealt with the bank cheques by sending them to an associate. In January 2026, Mr Gunn pleaded guilty to dealing with this money that was reasonably suspected of being the proceeds of crime (26-009MR).
ASIC Chair Sarah Court said, 'Mr Gunn ignored several clear warnings, including customer complaints made to Mormarkets' various Australian banks, that the money moving through Mormarkets' accounts was linked to suspected scam activity. By continuing to deal with those funds, he helped suspected international scammers move money taken from Australians.
'ASIC is committed to disrupting scams and, where possible, holding those who enable them to account. This case is another example of ASIC's broad work to combat scams, from pursuing alleged facilitators of cross-border investment scams, to taking action against institutions whose failures leave customers exposed.'
The sentence follows an ASIC investigation. The matter was prosecuted by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth) (CDPP) after an ASIC referral.
Background
Mr Gunn was sentenced for contravening s 400.9(1) of the Criminal Code (Cth).
ASIC has a multi-faceted approach to disrupting scams, working with the National Anti-Scam Centre and law enforcement to combat scams.
ASIC coordinates the removal of investment scam websites through its website takedown capability which removes investment scam websites and ads, including phishing, fake investment platforms and cryptocurrency investment scams. More than 25,000 investment scam and phishing websites have been removed since ASIC launched its service in 2023.
Quarterly data from ScamWatch and ReportCyber shows there was a combined total of 60,657 scam reports in the first three months of 2026, with reported losses of $248.3 million.
ASIC's recent actions include securing a $35 million penalty against HSBC after it admitted to serious failures in protecting customers from scams, and cancelling Capital Guard's AFS licence over a fake bond sale and other dishonest conduct. The cases demonstrate ASIC's commitment to disrupting scam activity and holding firms to account where misconduct or poor controls put consumers at risk.
Moneysmart provides detailed information on investment scams and how they work, including impostor bond scams, superannuation scams, and cryptocurrency scams. ASIC also publishes investment scam warnings.
Risk Warning: Cryptocurrency is a unregulated virtual notoriously volatile instrument with a high level of risk. Any news, opinions, research, data, or other information contained within this website is provided for news reporting purposes as general market commentary and does not constitute investment or trading advice.
