In October 2023, 10 months after MWL Financial Group advised him to invest A$400,000 of his retirement savings into the Shield Master Fund, an accountant from Queensland discovered his regular adviser had left the firm months earlier.

A new adviser, Rocco D’Amelio – who, on 18 July 2025 was banned from providing financial services for seven years – reassured him everything was fine and he had no reason to suspect otherwise.

“I assumed that because the fund was endorsed by Macquarie, they had done the due diligence,” he recalls. “If you cannot trust a company like Macquarie, where else do you place your trust?”

But by March 2024, after seeing lower-than-expected returns, he tried to withdraw his investment, only to be told redemptions were blocked for up to 24 months – a clause buried in the trust deed. Soon after, the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) moved to freeze the fund’s assets ahead of its liquidation. The money the accountant had worked his whole life for was locked away.

“I thought all my retirement savings were gone,” he says.

When the gatekeepers fail

The accountant interviewed for this story was lured by the promise of better returns than his employer-based fund could offer. The purportedly ‘agile’ fund would have offered the ability to move funds quickly to minimise losses.

“This was the most frustrating part of the ordeal, as I was blocked from moving my money as soon as I realised there was a problem,” he says.

This experience is a textbook case of ‘authorised fraud’, where a trusted, and often licensed, adviser deceives a client into willingly transferring money into a high-risk or inappropriate investment. While superannuation scams accounted for only 6% of complaints received by the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) in 2024–2025, the impact is devastating.

AFCA was established in 2018, combining and replacing the Financial Ombudsman Service, Credit Investments Ombudsman and the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal. This could explain why superannuation complaints seem low. A recent article in Super Review pointed out that the 6% “remains 17% higher than levels recorded in 2020–2021 and 2021–2022. While overall volumes have eased, complaints about superannuation services have increased 21%”.

An AFCA press release from late 2024 detailed that scam-related complaints in super may look small in number but the average loss was A$88,736 and some went higher than A$344,000. Even if AFCA finds in the complainant’s favour and if the issue is under the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort for victims of financial misconduct, individual payouts are capped at A$150,000.

In New Zealand, the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) notes the most common approach involves scammers building a relationship over time – sometimes for months or even years – to earn a victim’s trust. They often pose as advisers for fake investment firms, impersonating legitimate entities like the NZ Super Fund, which does not offer investments directly to the public.

The collapses of the Shield Master Fund and First Guardian, which have put nearly A$1 billion in retirement savings at risk for almost 11,000 Australians, exposed multiple systemic failures. Financial advisers at firms including MWL Financial Group were responsible for significant fund inflows. Meanwhile, research house SQM Research had given the high-risk fund a ‘favourable’ 3.75-star rating. SQM’s founder later admitted the fund's explosive growth from A$50 million to A$400 million in 2023 should have been a red flag.

For the accountant, the danger was compounded by a lack of diversification. Only after the collapse did he realise the majority of his super was concentrated in a single, high-risk fund. This mirrors the 2009 Trio Capital collapse, where self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) trustees suffered the greatest losses due to high exposure to fraudulent assets, whereas diversified, Australian Prudential Regulation Authority-regulated funds were better insulated from the fallout.

A due diligence imperative

As sophisticated scams proliferate, regulators and industry bodies are increasing coordination. The FMA has joined the New Zealand Anti-Scam Alliance and issued more than 110 warnings in the past year. In Australia, the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) has launched its Financial Crime Protection Initiative to develop industry-wide frameworks to combat fraud.

But regulators stress that CAs are the crucial frontline gatekeepers. The FMA advises professionals to stay informed on scam trends, help clients critically assess investment opportunities and conduct their own due diligence.

“As an accountant, I should have looked deeper,” the Queenslander admits. He now urges his peers to push past a sales pitch and independently verify the fundamentals. “Get the financial statements and audit opinions from the potential fund you’re going to invest in. Look deeper into the trustee of the fund as well.”

While victims are encouraged to seek redress, the process is difficult. AFCA lead ombudsman for superannuation, Heather Gray, encourages anyone impacted by the collapse of the First Guardian and Shield Master funds to lodge a complaint with their financial firm or with AFCA. However, she concedes the path to recovery is complex “due to the many entities involved”.

In this environment, pre-emptive protection is the most effective defence. AFCA provides clear, actionable steps that CAs can reinforce with their clients:

• Always keep identification details and passwords private and secure
• Take advantage of security features such as multi-factor authentication, where offered
• Review all correspondence and documents prepared by advisers, such as rollover requests
• Never sign a partially completed form.

A hard-won lesson in trust

For the Queensland accountant, the ordeal ended with a profoundly different outcome from that of most victims. Months after the fund's collapse, he received an email from Macquarie confirming the full return of his initial investment. He believes the action was likely taken after Macquarie realised it could be implicated in the collapse and decided to proactively refund investors, rather than face protracted legal and regulatory battles.

“At that point I thought that money was gone,” he says. “It really did feel like I’d won a lottery. It was just incredible.”

While he recouped his principal, the loss of potential earnings over several years was significant, a figure he estimates to be about A$150,000.

However, this outcome is the exception, not the rule. In the Trio Capital collapse, many victims, especially SMSF trustees who lacked diversification, lost everything. The accountant advises his peers to maintain a position of permanent scepticism for both themselves and their clients, urging them to “do your own research and trust yourself before anyone else”.