How a US Ponzi scheme financed some of Australia’s biggest concerts in the 2000s

Australia’s biggest gigs of the 2000s were organised by an array of Australian promoters – but none of them were aware that the financing often came from a $280 million Ponzi scheme run by American entrepreneur Jack Utsick.

These included tours by Robbie Williams, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Pennywise, The Vandals, Elton John, The Who and the first Australian Idol tour.

Utsick flew high with a five-star lifestyle that included his own yacht, before one day, it all caught up with him.

He is currently serving 18 years for fraud in a low-security jail 40 minutes south of Miami Beach.

In the latest episode of ABC podcast Background Briefing, reporter Mario Christodoulou and executive producer David Lewis scored an exclusive interview with 76-year old Utsick.

Utsick started out being involved in overseas tours by the likes of The Bee Gees, Britney Spears, Bruce Springsteen, Janet Jackson and Chris Isaak before working with Australian promoters.

“They all came down there and I was the funder for the acts,” he said. “I saw that vision for Australia. I said ‘this place is going to be big’.”

Utsick backed up his claims on Background Briefing with documents include letters, faxes, emails, bank transfers and handwritten notes.

Utsick and Michael Chugg had a formalised touring company for a time, but they fell out bitterly when the law caught up with Utsick.

Utsick told Background Briefing he met Chugg when they sat next to each other at a Bee Gees show, and they went on to do 120 shows together.

“Chuggie had the in. The people at the agencies who loved him and trusted them and they loved me because they knew my money was good, always, always.”

Chugg declined to be interviewed for the podcast citing confidentiality reasons.

Not all shows made money, one of them being by Anna Vissi, lauded as the “Greek Madonna”.

“Every Greek would come to see her because they all loved her. She was the biggest star in Greece and she would have a tremendous following in Australia.”

But two-thirds of Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena was empty and only half the tickets sold in Sydney, causing a loss of $1 million.

Chugg brought in future Soundwave founder AJ Maddah, whose brief was to cut the costs down.

Maddah told the singer he had to cut $200,000 off Visi’s fee, or he’d bring in homeless people to fill in all the spare seats and boo her after every song.

“Well thankfully they (Vissi’s people) didn’t question how I was going to round up all those homeless people in a matter of 24 hours,” he said.

Reporter Mario Christodoulou: “What other industry could you get away with that, where you can effectively threaten someone and say ‘tow the line or you know we’re going to make life difficult for you?”

Maddah: “Well that was a very unique case and it’s not something that’s ever been repeated or done before that or done after that as far as I’m aware.

“So it was more of a jest thing.”

After US authorities charged Utsick with fraud, he disappeared to Brazil.

When trying to get him back to the US, they claimed, due to a “clerical mistake” apparently, he was wanted on child-molestation charges.

As a result, Utsick was placed in a maximum security jail where the other inmates unleashed their vengeance.

“They were punching me and spitting on me, kicking me, everything, trying to get at me, to kill me,” he said

In October 2016 he was put away for 18 years.