GOLD COAST, June 22: the story begins in a courtroom. David McWilliams, a property developer, appeared in Southport Magistrates Court on Monday facing 13 criminal charges over an alleged fraud scheme of $10,138,587, brought after an investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission into money raised for specialist disability accommodation. For those involved, the case is about a promise made to two groups at once: investors who put money in, and NDIS participants in Queensland and Western Australia who were meant to get purpose-built homes. Neither, on the regulator’s account, got what was promised.
At its heart, the allegation is simple. Between July 2021 and 23 October 2023, ASIC says, McWilliams, acting as company director, dishonestly used investor funds raised for named projects and caused detriment to his company, with the spending routed to unrelated purposes. The catalogue the regulator lists: an Aston Martin, cryptocurrency purchases, a pub in the South Australian town of Whyalla, money placed with a litigation funder registered in the Seychelles, plus a luxury high-rise apartment at Surfers Paradise acquired for his wife. A further charge concerns a false or misleading statement that allegedly induced investors into one project. Of the six specialist disability accommodation projects tied to the charges, work started on exactly one. None was completed.
What unfolded before the charges began with, of all things, a casino ledger. On the regulator’s account, Queensland’s liquor and gaming watchdog flagged that McWilliams was gambling “significant sums of money” at the Star Casino, sums suspected to be investor money raised for property developments. ASIC opened its investigation on 17 July 2024, aimed at McWilliams, at his wife Laura Fullarton and at the ALAMMC companies; receivers from BDO, Helen Newman and Andrew Fielding, were later appointed over ALAMMC Developments and 12 related entities, and their findings were stark: over $90 million had come in from upward of 500 investors for disability accommodation projects.
The legal machinery around the case has been grinding since. The Federal Court made asset-freezing orders in September 2024, preserving the assets of the ALAMMC companies, of McWilliams and of Fullarton, and barring McWilliams from leaving Australia; in October 2025 the remaining group companies were wound up on just and equitable grounds after concerns raised by the court-appointed receivers. Alongside the criminal case, ASIC has brought contempt proceedings over alleged breaches of those freezing orders, alleging he shifted at least $297,327 out of frozen and undisclosed accounts, failed to declare interests in two racehorses and diverted prize money to an undisclosed account, while Fullarton is alleged to have shifted at least $245,159 out of frozen ANZ and other accounts. That contempt trial ran before Justice O’Sullivan in the Federal Court in Brisbane from 15 to 18 June 2026, and judgment has been reserved.
For now, the criminal allegations remain just that: allegations, to be tested by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, and no finding has been made against McWilliams. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years’ imprisonment. The court diary tells its own story of pace: after Monday’s appearance the matter was adjourned to August, then September, then November 2026, and is now listed for mention on 8 March 2027. What is already beyond dispute is the hole left behind: $90 million-plus of investor money from 500-plus backers, six promised housing projects and not one home delivered to the people the scheme existed to house.
Sources
- 26-131MR Property developer David McWilliams charged over $10 million fraud scheme | ASIC
- Developer Faces Court Over $10m NDIS Housing Fraud Case | The Urban Developer
