‘I realised that he’d been running a Ponzi scheme’: Business partner’s shock discovery

September 3, 2026 — 7:00pmThe business partner of a man accused of operating a $100 million Ponzi scheme through an Ivanhoe law firm has told a court he discovered a secret cache of loan files stored in a cabinet in his colleague’s office after his death.Shane Maguire told a Melbourne court on Thursday that he found the files in the office of his long-time business partner and alleged Ponzi scheme operator John Adams after his sudden death in 2023 at his holiday house near Lorne.Shane Maguire, the former business partner of John Adams of the now famous AMS Ivanhoe Ponzi scheme, leaves court on Thursday. Joe ArmaoMaguire was called to give evidence by liquidators to one of the companies tied to the now notorious investment scheme as part of a series of public examinations.Adams, Maguire and Vincent Sier were partners in the AMS Ivanhoe Lawyers practice, which serviced a who’s who of Melbourne’s affluent set, including former Carlton Football Club president Ian Collins and a host of racing industry figures, as well as the Victorian Bookmaking Association.Many of the firm’s well-heeled clients invested with the firm, which then loaned the money out at much higher interest rates than the banks.Upon Adams’ death, it was discovered he had been allegedly operating a Ponzi scheme and that money from new investors had been used to pay out the generous returns to old investors. Adams’ death and the collapse of the scheme wiped out tens of millions of dollars invested by the firm’s clients.Maguire told the court he was aware the firm had operated a mortgage scheme from 2004 but that Adams had led him to believe it had been closed after 2013.“I was trusting of John Adams. We were partners, we worked together for a long time. After his death I found out that I should not have trusted him. I have paid a significant consequence,” Maguire said.Since the collapse of the scheme, Maguire and Sier have been hit with dozens of civil claims from investors who insist that the pair were aware of the mortgage fund as their names were on key documents. Both have retired from legal practice and neither have been formally accused of any offence.During his examination, Maguire was shown several loan documents, bank statements and company documents that showed he was co-director with Adams on several companies set up to manage the individual investments made by firm clients in the schemeOne of the documents was a bank statement for an AMS bank account that received much of the mortgage funds, which Maguire said was not a firm account.The address for the bank account was a post office box in Lorne.“The moment I saw the bank statements being sent to Lorne it concerned me there would be no reason they would be sent to Lorne but to be hidden,” Maguire told the court.The court heard the firm had obtained a bank guarantee to help cover the financial obligations of the mortgage fund.Maguire told the court that he was aware of the guarantee from about 2022 and had asked Adams to close it out several times.John Adams and his firm, AMS Ivanhoe Lawyers.This response led counsel for the liquidators, Christopher Brown, KC, to ask: “If you had expected the fund to wind down in 2013, why was there a need to have that bank guarantee still in place in 2023?”Maguire replied: “Adams hadn’t done anything to release it or to ask for it to be released.”Maguire said he later learnt Adams had drawn up fake mortgages and had them registered over some of the firms’ clients’ homes without their knowledge or permission.Some of these fake mortgages had been registered using Maguire’s login for property settlement platform PEXA. Maguire told the court that information was available to other staff at the firm.He told the court he never asked Adams how he was able to regularly provide the firm with cash when it needed it but said Adams must have had a lot more money than he did.Maguire also told the court that he attended the law firm’s office on the Sunday morning after Adams’ death two days earlier.“What did you find?” asked Brown.“I found that [John’s son] Nick Adams was in the office with John’s PA,” Maguire told the court.Maguire asked both what they were looking at and if they and they had touched any files. “They said no, and I said leave now,” he said.“Subsequently, I became aware that there was a folder that Nick had taken, which wasn’t an Adams file … He claimed subsequently that it was a personal file of Adams’,” Maguire said.Days later Nick Adams returned a folder with documents, including lists of bank accounts.Maguire said the personal assistant was unable to say if anything had been taken from the file before it was returned.Maguire told the court he soon discovered a trove of documents relating to the mortgage scheme in a cabinet in Adams’ office and in his desk drawers.“There were manilla folders with information in them, in relation to each of the people who had given him money to invest,” Maguire said.“And after spending some time going through those, I realised that he’d been running a Ponzi scheme quite outside the practice, and that I wasn’t too sure what to do at that stage.”Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.Sarah Danckert is a senior reporter who specialises in investigations and corporate wrongdoing. She is a two-time Walkley Award winner, and has won six Quill Awards and two Kennedy Awards.Connect via X or email.From our partners