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I'm Mike Boris and this is Straight Talk.
Why you do it then?
We're going to take you live now following the arrest of two men on charges of insider trading.
...of approximately $7 million.
None obtaining information from the Australian Euro Statistics employee.
And he used that information to enter into foreign exchange...
The first, you know, five minutes of speaking to him,
essentially we'd decided that I'd be pleading guilty.
In that same five-minute conversation, it was like, you'll definitely be going to prison.
That's when things really started to sink in.
How did you find out he was scaling for himself?
I found out the day I was arrested.
Yeah, that's when I heard about the, you know, $7.5 million...
...expected to see an equal profit share.
We agreed to $200,000.
$200,000 over 12 months.
You know, he's...
Saying, well, keep it small, under the radar.
Excuse me for giving.
Chris Hill, welcome to Straight Talk, mate.
Thanks for having me.
You've watched a couple of episodes?
Yeah, I've watched a few.
Listened to quite a few more.
I actually only just found out that the whole thing was recorded.
I'd always just listened to it on Spotify.
And then, yeah, someone told me that...
We do everything here, mate.
So, we've got Chris Hill here sitting in front of me.
And I've talked to lots of different people who've done lots of weird, wonderful things
in their life, but I really haven't spoken to anybody yet who's had the experience that
you had, that is, I guess you're still a young man, but as a relatively young man at
that time, being lured by the prospect of making money into disclosing something you
should never have disclosed.
So, and then, of course, you get caught and you get convicted.
And you did your time.
And now you're out.
And you do a lot of speaking around this.
And you do a lot of speaking to young people, too, especially about the mistakes you've made.
Yeah, I've done a few in the past, some corporate stuff.
But I like doing the stuff for universities, younger people, trying to maybe put a little
bit of fear of God into them that these sorts of things can actually happen.
And I really enjoy seeing the reactions, seeing people understand that it is real, like it
It's quite fulfilling.
You know, we watch the movie The Wolf of Wall Street, and we watch the movie Greed, and
all those sorts of things.
And to some extent, we don't have that type of thing happen much here in Australia, certainly
not on the fantastic basis.
But for someone like me who's really interested in what happens in the Australian Bureau of
What happens at the Reserve Bank, and where interest rates are going to go, and what's
going to happen with the Aussie dollar, and how data can affect these things, and or having
the right amount of data can put you in a superior position.
To me, I'm fascinated, okay?
I want to find out who Chris Hill was prior to all these things happening.
Where did you go to school?
What was your deal?
Normal family life?
Or were you one of these corrupted kids?
But what was the deal?
No, look, I think the Chris Hill.
Back then, he's the same Chris Hill now, pretty much.
I had a pretty normal life growing up.
Went to school in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, and then moved to a private school in that
Really enjoyed school.
Was very athletic, loved the sports.
I found school pretty easy.
I managed to get really good grades.
Mathematics was always just, I could just do it.
English and that, wasn't great at, but still did okay.
But maths and science, and anything to do with numbers and things that you could have
a definitive answer, that sort of thing for me, I found pretty easy.
And that got you into university?
Yeah, so that got me into university.
Went to Monash, where I did a double degree in commerce and economics.
And that was probably when I got to university.
I went to uni, I turned 18, because I was only 17 when I started.
And once I turned 18 and started going out, started driving, had a lot more freedom, I
think the grades suffered a little bit.
I was probably not as concerned about the marks and things that I had been at high school.
And I just had a really good time at uni, but did well enough, thankfully, to get offered
a job at the ABS.
Yeah, so university has a way.
When you first go to university, especially if you come from a private school environment
and a good family, it tends to challenge your reliance upon structure.
Because there's no structure at university, basically.
You want to fuck it up, you fuck it up.
If you want to do well, you do well.
And you were doing a double degree, which is probably something you thought, oh, I'm
sweet, I've always done well in my exams, I'll be all right, I'll leave things to last
But you get challenged.
I mean, to be honest with you, that happened to me.
The same thing happened to me in my first semester at university.
What were you hoping to do from the university degree that you were doing?
You say you got a job offer from the ABS, but what do you come out as after having done
commerce and economics?
Yeah, so I think the economic side, I didn't enjoy as much.
So I steered more towards the finance, which is obviously under the commerce branch, as
well as econometrics.
Which is a good thing.
Which is sort of a cross between statistics and economics, and that's where I really enjoyed.
And I found that, as I said, with my maths background, I found that really rewarding
and it all made sense to me in that sense.
Through uni, I wanted to go into high corporate finance, banking, that sort of thing.
I just didn't have the grades, basically.
You know, these...
For the top tiers that I envisioned myself going to, like probably everyone does when
they go into finance.
You might have in those days, Pete Melvin Mitchell, Bryce Waterhouse, UBS, Macquarie
But I came to terms with that fairly quickly, because I just knew that I just kept doing
what I was doing and that I'd get somewhere at the end of it.
So the ABS, Australian Bureau of Statistics, recruits out of universities.
Lots of students.
Did you end up getting an internship or they offered you a job?
No, it was just a straight job.
And what was your job?
So I started basically in what they call time series analysis.
So basically, there's a section that gathers all the data, does all the surveys, and brings
it all into all the numbers, et cetera, and just as raw data.
Now, what time series analysis?
What time series analysis does is basically turns that data into something that is actually
usable by the public.
So if you think of retail sales, for example, there's no point saying, the sales have gone
up from August to December, because December's fucking Christmas, right?
So sales always go up 30%.
Of course they're going to go up.
So seasonal analysis in the name of it, we adjust for the seasons.
We adjust for sort of one-off events and things.
Like you might be adjusting for Black Friday, for example.
So, or something catastrophic happens somewhere, causes a massive spike in the data, we sort
of remove that spike to give an underlying number that's actually-
Sort of normalize it.
Give a number that's comparable across the time periods.
Just before you move on from there.
Go back to university just for a moment.
We meet lots of different people at university who we didn't meet at school.
We build out a brand new network.
Who did you meet during that period?
I probably had five or six sort of reasonably close mates at university, but I didn't really
socialize with those guys that much.
I've always been really close with my high school mates and still to today.
And all my best mates are all from year seven, I've known them all for 20 plus years.
So yeah, there was probably four of us that sort of hung out.
Anyone in particular though?
So Lucas, yeah, obviously I met Lucas there and he, yeah, he was an interesting guy.
What was he doing?
The same course as you?
He was doing the same course.
Exact same course.
And did a lot of the same.
A lot of the same.
A lot of the same subjects as me as well.
So we did a lot of tutes together and that sort of thing.
We hanging out together?
Like a little bit like if there was a university social event or we had some time in between
classes or whatever, go and kick the footy or have lunch or something like that.
But nothing really like outside of university.
Did anything strike you about his personality?
Or his character?
I think the main thing that sort of gets you with Lucas is just how excitable he is.
And he's just on all the time and it's just really like in your face, on, excited about
It doesn't matter what the topic is.
He's just passionate and he loves just talking about anything and everything and he has a
really good general knowledge of most topics.
Would you call him attractive?
Like in the sense that he's a person that attracts people's attention and it attracts
you to want to talk to him or be around him.
Maybe not necessarily at the pub, but just generally.
I think certain people, but I think also he probably rubs a lot of people the wrong way
Probably I'd say a lot of people would find him quite arrogant to the point that they'd say,
I'm just going to be honest with you.
And I think that's just a point that they may not want to have or continue conversations
As an opinionated?
Just maybe a little like overbearing, a little, you know, when you just want to have like a
casual conversation and you've got that one person who takes it like really, really seriously
and really intense and it's just, you know, just-
Just calm it down.
So, I know those people.
So, and so you're in the ABS.
So, you're in the ABS and you're working in the time series analysis.
So, what were you looking at in the terms of the time series analysis?
So, retail sales is one of the big ones, building approvals, the labor force, so employment
data, unemployment rates-
All those sorts of, probably the big like leading indicators.
The major announcements that come from those, we pretty much worked on either directly
from myself or someone within our reasonably small team.
And when you join up something like the ABS, and I've always been fascinated by this because
the ABS puts out its releases data, I don't know, some things monthly, some things quarterly,
but it has its own rhythm.
And a lot of these things.
It's really relevant to how inflation gets addressed by the RBA and more and more relevant
how markets react in terms of the Aussie dollar, could be the Aussie dollar, it could be interest
rate trades, it could be share market, et cetera.
So, and as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong, but the ABS only, we all, everybody
in the whole world, including the government, the treasurer, the prime minister, the governor
of the RBA, we all see the numbers on the same day, the results on the same day.
So we just put it out on the website, abs.com, it's remember statistics.com.au, and the whole
world sees it on the same day.
Did the ABS, when they recruit you, sort of tell you like, hey guys, anything you see
here has got to be kept in-house, I mean, and how hard is it to control that?
I mean, how do they work all that or do they break it up such that you only see little
I mean, how does it all work?
It's a good question.
I don't remember there being any sort of emphasis on that.
I think like maybe the first day, when you sign your contract or whatever, you probably
A little print or whatever saying, don't do this, don't do that.
But yeah, I think they just, they never really, I guess, come across something like that.
And then I think because of that, they probably just didn't really have much interest.
I mean, they didn't really have much in place.
And you're right because there would be hundreds and hundreds of people there who would have
access prior, two to three weeks sometimes.
Two weeks out the data might not be the final number, but generally it's going to be close
enough to if you want to do what you want to do.
So, yeah, they had a few measures in place.
place but it wasn't really and would you have to go on hunt for example if you're working in the
time series analysis of the data for for example for the unemployment number um which is particularly
important at the moment in australia when it comes to the reserve banks position relative to what
they're going to do with interest rates it's one of the big ones they look at along with the wage
price index but would any person be in a position to see what is going to be within a you know within
a range of variation but like what will the final number be or do they sort of have everybody broken
up into different parts and so like no one person at the abs could actually gather this information
uh no like me for example i could see everything because you could just access on the yeah i mean
my job is literally to come up with that final number right essentially right okay so you were
the guy i had the final number but they didn't split you up uh no so it wasn't 10 of you or six
of you oh well i mean like anyone really anyone in my team um could jump on and see that they had
access to it yeah like authorization yeah and and i mean today we i mean this while ago we're
talking about when this will happen but
today just my environment our compliance department is just all over everybody like
for data yeah information but like nothing or nothing should leak out um and everything's
being continually audited both in a software sense and in a physical sense by internal auditors
did you have did the abs have big compliance departments that you knew about let's have a
look at your file here chris what are you doing yeah no not not that i ever uh
remembered i don't think i ever had a any sort of interaction with anyone i i think that like
i think probably the big difference is like when you're talking about you know data and
data leaks and things like a lot of the all the ones you hear about is you know
massive files on clients and this sort of thing except at the abs what you're talking about is
like a single number you know so it's something that like for example i couldn't take a lot of
all the client data out in my head i'd have to do something like put it on a usb or like send it
out somewhere or whatever and i think the difference with this is um yeah if you can
remember one or two numbers uh that's that's it and um it's it's it's i guess a different type of
privacy breach than um what's normally talked about in that sense so how how old were you when
you were sort of in the business and how did you get into the business and how did you get into the
in this position uh well 21 pretty young 21 to 24 pretty young yeah like very young yeah um and all
of a sudden you see there's no look no big brother looking over your shoulder
and you see this information were you aware enough as a 21 22 23 24 year old were you aware
enough of an opportunity that might exist if you had this information i i don't know
no idea no i don't know but back then no idea no idea because there was there was no uh
there was no link between what at least at the abs between i guess what we were doing and the
actual announcements coming out you know it was like our team is very much all right like this
is we're doing our part and then it goes on to the the next department and they do the releases and
there was never like really a
great connect between those two um at least not in my eyes it was never something i'd
i'd looked into um really so i mean yeah it would have been obvious for someone who was in
knowledge and in that sort of sector or whatever um but for me it didn't it didn't mean anything
really um at the time so tell me the obvious place i mean can build a bridge for me here like
did lucas contact you say hey mate what are you doing
i mean how'd that all come about like yeah yeah essentially we were just chatting
we were chatting uh down at uh down at the beach uh just bumped into him no we had a we had a
birthday party for for a university mate um down at a holiday house on the coast somewhere
we were just chatting about our our work what we were doing um and you know he was uh he was
at nab at the time i'm working on the foreign exchange desk um which means
so i mean he was essentially um like he was right in there on the you know the dealing desk um
dealing with the you know the big banks etc putting big big trades on for them etc um in
the in the foreign exchange market basically dealing in foreign currencies exactly relative
to australian currencies yeah so not just not just um uh australian but you know any sort of
international currency yeah so if and if you know if
he was instructed to buy us dollars he bought it with australian dollars yeah but there's there's
always a an opportunity there's always a better time to buy or a better price to buy it based on
how markets set prices yeah and to some extent you know banks set prices to some extent because
if their trades are big enough but generally speaking they're always trying to do the best
deal possible by as cheap as possible and to some extent they get recognized internally for how well
they do um and can get a reputation
for how well they do so he's he's telling you that's what he's doing he's working on the
foreign exchange um a desk of a bank major bank he you tell him what you're doing did uh the light
bulb go off on anybody at that point i mean for him it was straight away um well did you see it
do you remember the moment you did you see you knew him well enough i mean did you see his
excitement or was he just he got very excited he got very excited yeah but um
like it sort of seemed like a joke you know at the time it was like you know it was like oh you know
we should like you know we can use that and like make him some money and like and we were all
drinking and laughing and you know it was like certainly didn't seem to me like a serious
conversation you know it was just uh everyone's just talking basically the typical young
guys yeah just a bunch of guys drinking and yeah carrying on so so
you know i hope you don't mind me asking these detailed questions but like it's i'm just
intrigued as how do these things sort of evolve and how they're built at what point did he say
hey mate uh did you bring it back up and say mate let's have a coffee like without
all the other boys been around and uh and girls uh let's just sit down and
talk this through what happened yeah i think uh i think it was probably a a few weeks later or
something and um he called me and we had a bit of a conversation and then it kind of still kind of
started to sing and then he's actually sort of serious about this and that um i guess he he
explained it to me because like i said back then i i i wasn't in that industry and i didn't really
understand how it worked or or what um you know to what extent uh you know these um these releases
meant for those sorts of markets i just just had no idea back then so yeah we met uh probably i
think we met back in melbourne a couple of times and and went over
essentially what you know he was suggesting we could do um with you know a small amount of um
you know startup money so you call it yeah so can you just tell me what you guys concocted
then do you mind what did you what did you just did you decide to do yeah so um we basically
decided that we would put uh 10 grand into a um a cfd account um with uh with a broker and um with
an exchange broker and basically uh it was pretty simple it would be um he gave me a few of the
announcements that um you know he said were significant you know the retail sales unemployment
was always the the massive one um interest rates you know cpi data um i never had access to so that
was just i guess out of the question but yeah so the employment rate etc and um yeah we just he just
you know if if you give me the information you know a day or two before or whenever you get it
um he said he'll put the trades on because he'll know which way it's gonna it's gonna
move when the announcement comes out and then he'll um sell it afterwards
um and should be able to make um i think we agreed to 200 grand at the time all together
all together 200 grand let's make 200 grand let's make 200 grand over 12 months um you know
he's saying we'll keep it small um under the radar in this you know in this industry it's a tiny
amount of money um you know it won't you know 10 grand here 20 grand here it's it's it's it's nothing
in that it's it's not going to go noticed you're not going to make 200 grand in one shot you're
going to make 10 grand 20 grand just build it up just do the trades little odd trades look like
you're lucky yep and uh get a couple hundred grand and what were you gonna do with your 100
yeah i mean is there a plan yeah no
not really like it um like even even back then even as a you know 24 year old it wouldn't it
was never going to be a life-changing amount of money um you know because you know we even talked
about i'll have to pay tax and then you know what there's like 50 60 grand left each or whatever so
um yeah yeah i think a good question um i think for me it was a it was a bit of a thrill um
initially and it uh it was a real sense of like achievement in a way it was like something that
we'd something we'd discussed we'd put into plan and and then started doing it and you know and it
was working it was successful um and it was it was a good feeling and i think that's why
i kept doing it at least on my part because it was yeah it was a sense of achievement um something
that has made you happy or something that has made you feel-
Yeah, and something that, you know, just that we'd done ourselves
from nothing, if that makes sense.
Yeah, it's sort of like a start-up in some respects.
Yeah, a little bit it was like a little start-up, yeah.
And did you get closer to him?
Did you become better mates?
I mean, I was always in Canberra.
He was back in Melbourne and the only conversation we literally have
is like I'd call him once a month or a couple of times a month
depending on when the announcements were going to come out
and just give him the figures and that was it.
Didn't you ring him and say, hey, mate, we smashed it.
We just made our best week.
I mean, yeah, he'd typically call me the night after
and let me know how much money he'd made.
Well, he'd tell me how much.
How much money you made.
Yeah, he wasn't telling me how much money he'd made,
There was still never any social interactions or catching up really
apart from one or two times back in Melbourne, but that was it.
So tell me what was he doing on the side?
Yeah, so he'd opened up two or three other accounts
and instead of putting on β
small trades, making 10, 20 grand,
he was putting on very, very substantial trades
and making hundreds of thousands in a few seconds
up to half a million, a million within 30 seconds, a minute sort of thing.
At the end, that's the scale it was.
But yeah, the reporting back to me was we're up to 80 grand.
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And, you know, still for me, like I, I didn't, um, you know, I still, like I left all the,
the training and all that to him.
I didn't, I didn't understand it at that time.
I didn't really have an interest in it.
Um, and so, uh, it was very easy for me to just believe that I, I, I didn't know that
it could scale to that extent, I guess.
How did you find it?
He was, he was scaling for himself.
Uh, I found out the day I was arrested.
Oh, you didn't know?
Did you ever, did you ever get any of the money out of your trades?
Did you ever actually withdraw any of the money out of the, how much money you guys are going to make?
Uh, I got 20 grand cash.
You took 20 grand out?
The rest of it was just stayed in there for trading, for working capital?
What was he doing with his money?
Uh, yeah, he's, um, he was my.
Making some, making some, uh, some pretty big purchases.
He, he bought one of the apartments from the block or the winning apartment from, um, series
Um, I, I, I don't think he was, I mean, that was obviously splashing out, but I think,
I don't think apart from that, he wasn't really splashing out too much.
Um, at least from, from what I've heard.
Um, I do know there was, there was definitely a lot of talk.
Talks about purchases and things.
Um, but I, I think in that sense, again, all the, all the money was still just sitting,
um, in one of the trading accounts.
So how did you come undone?
How'd the whole thing just sort of fall apart?
Uh, we, we got, um, we got reported to ASIC.
Who, who reported you there?
Um, so the, he was, he was head of sales, uh, Joel Murphy.
He was head of sales, um, at Pepperstone.
Um, and he, um, you know, either himself or the risk team would have picked up the
trades as, as an anomaly.
Why were they an anomaly though?
They were anomaly in the sense of the, the, the amount of money being made for a start.
This is a retail broker.
This is not, you know, institutional.
So, you know, at a retail broker, you know, anything sort of over 10, 20, 30 grand is,
is a reasonably large amount of money.
Um, so the fact that, you know, he was making hundreds of thousands per trade wasn't losing
There were a few sort of dummy trades that were placed, um, to potentially make the trading
look more normalized, but, um, just the sheer scale of it would have had everyone looking
And, um, you know, it would have been from, from their point of view, um, very obvious
with the fact that.
All the trades were done over these major news announcements.
And did you can, uh, I want to ask you, so on the account that you guys had, did it have
your personal name?
It was under his name.
So they did, they wouldn't have known if they're looking at the account that, well, hang on,
there's this guy called Chris who's working at the ABS.
So they didn't want to put that part together.
So everything, um, yeah, everything was just under Lucas's name.
Um, I think they looked him up.
On social media just to say, who's this guy?
How's he got so much money?
Um, and then there was a connection made between me on his, I think Facebook or LinkedIn about,
um, where I worked, which was ABS.
And then I think they put two and two together.
Um, and, uh, ASIC was contact, contacted at that point and then ASIC escalated to AFP.
Your undoing was social media at the end of the day, you know, like, uh.
Or him linking, linking you, them linking him to you through social media and then, then
looking at your LinkedIn account or something along those lines.
Something like that.
And that's a typical sort of compliance process.
And this is the compliance at the, uh, um, the broker.
So the brokers, I mean, because they're always checking these things out, especially a couple
of young guys are doing so well.
Like it looks a bit odd.
And, uh, and the anomaly that you're talking about is he's a young guy.
He's a young guy killing it.
Um, no out, uh, outward signs of, uh, Ferraris or whatever.
He wasn't, he wasn't actually, uh, you know, um, uh, the Wolf of Wall Street in some respects.
I mean, he wasn't out there smoking cigars and snorting cocaine in public or something
He wasn't doing that shit.
So, but they, they just did their normal compliance checks and then they, they found the both
ASIC, did ASIC talk to you or did the AFP come straight up?
Uh, well it was, um, yeah, both ASIC and AFP, like joint investigation in the end.
So what happened?
I remember the day.
Yeah, I remember the day.
Where did they, where did they come in on a Saturday, Sunday, Monday?
Uh, he came in on a Friday morning at about 4am, I think.
Coming to your house?
Uh, yeah, came to my apartment in Canberra.
Um, I think I'd only, I think I'd only got home at about two.
Uh, yeah, I was, I was pretty tired.
And, and, um, just, yeah, just obviously lots of banging and screaming, yelling to, to open
Um, they, they came in with, I don't know, five or six of them and, um, then they brought
a dog in, uh, or a couple of dogs.
Um, and even, even when they, you know, they first started talking to me, showed me this,
um, the search warrant.
Initially, yeah, initially I, I honestly thought that they'd come to the wrong house.
Um, I think probably a combination of being, being in shock, um, and probably, yeah, probably
still a little intoxicated potentially.
Um, and it was only, yeah, when I started reading through the actual, actual search
warrant, um, that, you know, I just kind of dropped and I was like, shit, this is a.
Was they handcuffed you?
They, not at that point, no.
They, they, um, uh, they took me back.
They took me back to the, to one of the, um, stations there and that was when I was in
the back of the car that, um, it actually came onto the radio and that's when, yeah,
that's when I heard about the, you know, seven and a half million dollars, um, of, of profits.
And so that, that was me hearing the amounts for the first time.
Um, and initially though, I was just like, oh, that's just, that's media, you know, that's,
that's nowhere near seven and a half million.
Like, um, but, uh, yeah.
And, and then it was, you know, uh, face to face, well, you know, an interview, um, with
AFP, um, which, you know, which was just on a no comment on interview on, on my behalf.
Um, but yeah, they, they were then talking about the, the amounts of money and this sort of thing.
And that's when things, I, I guess, for me started to, to click that, um, you know, this
is potentially a lot bigger than, than I, than I thought.
Did you get a lawyer?
I, I mean, I didn't know a lawyer.
I didn't need a lawyer.
I didn't, I, I spoke to, yeah, I spoke to mom and dad, um, the, I think that night, um,
I'd been locked up at that point, um, in like a holding cell, uh, underneath one of the
courts, um, in Canberra.
And yeah, I, I, I spoke to them, um, and, and, you know, basically, well, didn't, didn't
say too much really, but, um, the, the main gist of the conversation was that, can you,
can you sort a lawyer out, essentially?
Um, because up until that point, um, I had spoken to a lawyer, but it was just like,
he just said, just shut up, don't say anything.
And that was about it.
So did you get bail?
Um, so the first night I was, I was in Canberra and then they flew me, they flew me to Melbourne
So, um, but it was, it was interesting going through the airport cause there was, you know,
there was media and cameras everywhere and then they took, uh, you know, they took me
to sort of a area.
Uh, to a, you know, they took, they took you to a popular apartment, some area away from
the public and, you know, we got on the, on the plane last and it actually went.
I remember going through some like tunnels or something and popping up somewhere and
then going to the back of the plane when, when everyone was like already on board.
Cause you weren't hanging it in the lounge.
I wasn't hanging out in the lounge, no free drinks, unfortunately.
Um, but yeah, you know, one of the.
How did you feel at that stage?
I mean, by the stage you've got to have your hangover, I guess.
Well, maybe you didn't.
But how did you feel?
Like what was going through your head?
I think it β I mean, obviously I knew it was very serious at that point.
But I reckon I was still very much in shock.
Things definitely hadn't sunk in and probably didn't for a couple of days.
But probably once I got bail and went to see the barrister that had been organised,
that's when things really started to sink in and the gravity of the situation.
You know, in the first, you know, five minutes of speaking to him,
essentially we decided that I'd be pleading guilty.
You know, and β
In that same five-minute conversation, it was like,
you'll definitely be going to prison.
And what was the charge, the actual charge or charges?
There was β initially it was about 15.
You know, when they first β they throw everything at it.
But what it boiled down to was insider trading, which was obviously the big one.
Abuse of public office.
That was for the β
The breaching of information from the ABS.
And then use of identity information,
which was essentially using a phone that was in someone else's name.
Right, so you had like a burner?
Like a burner phone, yeah.
You had one β you used it to correspond with him?
Yeah, yeah, we did, yeah.
I think β well, not from the start, I think.
He registered them a few months in.
Under, I think, someone from work or something.
And just gave me one of them when we were in Melbourne.
It seemed β I don't know, to me it seemed very like over the top at the time.
But β because I think back then, like the seriousness of what we were doing
probably to me wasn't that apparent.
Can I ask you a question?
Do you put that down to naivety or do you put that down to β is that your personality?
You don't really register the importance of things?
I think there's probably a little bit of both.
Like initially, obviously there was a lot of me thinking back and forth
about the consequences, et cetera.
And like I definitely knew that what we were doing was illegal, like 100%.
Probably because of me.
But then once we did β it very quickly just molded into like a β just a habit.
Business as usual.
You weren't getting a high off it.
No, I wasn't getting a high but it was β when you make a decision over and over again with
zero consequences, it stops becoming a decision.
a decision. You just do it. It's a bit like if you like to do Coke every Friday night and every
Friday night you ring up your Coke supplier and he turns up and you buy the Coke and he gives you
the Coke and you snort the grain with your mates and you cost you whatever it costs you for whatever
it is. And then you do the next Friday and nothing ever happens. No bad consequences. It just becomes,
that's what I do Friday nights. My mates get pissed, drink vodkas and do Coke.
And I mean, if that's what you're doing, probably the first time you do it,
you're very hesitant. And like you said, after that, you just do it.
Yeah. It's interesting how the brain works. And once the risk goes out of it, because
it's what you do and no consequences, you just keep doing it. Other people do it for the thrill.
So, I mean, that's not you though. You were saying, I'm not a thrill seeker as such.
Do you think he was doing it for the thrill? Because he's obviously dealing much larger numbers.
I think probably a little bit of the
Thrill for him, but I think very much the money was the big impact for him. It was a pure business,
not business, but you know what I mean? It was a transaction that would enrich him. And if all went
well, he would come out potentially with $10 million or more.
Yeah. So, because that was the thing I was going to ask you. Do you think, did you or
at any time or did you at all times do this out of enrichment or just because I want to enrich
myself? Because we're only talking about 50 grand potentially half the tax and you only have got 20
of it. Was that your thinking for enrichment? Using information illegally gotten for my own
personal enrichment or was it, I'm doing it just because we talked about it and I'm doing it?
Yeah. It wasn't the, like I said, the money was small. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and,
and I knew that, um, I think for me it was, uh, yeah, it was like, goes back to that sense of,
of achieving something. And it, um, it, it felt good that it was, it was successful.
Yeah. Uh, it was again, like putting something in place, you know, executing it and being
successful. And that was probably a small part that was like, oh, you know, other people,
you know, other people like,
that I'm working with, they're not doing this, you know, it's, it's just me doing it, you know,
and it was, um, yeah, it, it, it was a, a, a good feeling, but, but monetary wise for me,
wasn't, uh, it wasn't really a driving factor in, in the, probably initially, you know, the,
the, the thought of, oh, you know, at 22 or whatever I was, you know,
come out with 50 grand, I mean, great. Um, but as it continued, yeah, it was more
about that, that success.
So you, you both get nailed. I, I presume he got nailed as well at the same time.
You find out that he's been doing big trades. It's the anomaly, the anomalous nature of the trades,
particularly given they are larger trades and the, the anomaly that they were mostly successful,
that sort of drew the eye of the compliance department for the trading accounts. That sort of,
no, they're really, um, really lifting that bar a brick to the ground because,
I mean, there's just amazing, amazing performance today and, you know,
and , and I'm gonna admit to this, I've seen, I've also seen the game one more time.
Um, and I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about other things in my set material too,
before we say something else and about some other topics ago, but mostly,
um, um, well, um, so, uh, I, you know, I, my, I guess as a, as a, as a former, I've, as a former
mΠΊΠΈΠ²ier or former as well, uh, uh, as a former mcaf Dieter, I mean I, I'm, Iv' cosθΆ
um during during our time on bail i think that yeah the first time in one of the first court
appearances after we got remanded then we were both in the um in the holding cell together
um you know it was just sort of like an icebreaker um he was just sort of like well i
fucked that up you know he made the admission yeah he was just like yeah i really fucked that up
and um but i mean yes i was pissed off of course um but there was just so much other
shit that i was dealing with that it was like my you know feelings towards him at that point
just seemed so insignificant to what to everything else that was happening you're about to do time
yeah yeah exactly um that i just didn't have the energy to you know to even go down that
so you didn't forget
do you forgive him yeah i mean i honestly don't have ill feelings towards him
you won't hang out with him is he still in jail or is he no he's out now and no i haven't seen him
how long do you stay in jail for um i i was sentenced to three and a half years and i did
my minimum of two years so you did two years um how'd you do that tough i mean where was it
first four months was was probably the hardest because that was um that was on remand so if
you're on remand you've got to be in in max um so the first four months was was pretty tough um
after that after we got sentenced um i got moved to a minimum security um place and that was
definitely a lot better um still like obviously still a really shit place to be
but certainly from from the first four months it was a it was a vast improvement um and you know i
basically just kept as busy as possible i was doing some um uni courses through sort of
correspondence um that sort of thing and i was writing lots of letters uh going to the
going to the gym like every day religiously getting really fit um you had to work i was i
was uh working as a
baker in the kitchen there making you know a few hundred loaves of bread a day um and and just
then at night time so i was just busy all the time and that's that's probably how i
coped with it just did he get worse a longer sentence than you yeah so he got seven and a
half to serve four and a half so you got seven and a half on the top and four and a half on the
bottom yeah so so he got essentially double
what i got yeah and did you have to give anything did you feel compelled at this stage i mean did
you have to give evidence against him like that would have made his sentence longer uh not really
because we both pleaded we both pleaded guilty basically right at the start um we obviously did
have um interviews to get everything straight that's what happened but it was all you know
essentially everything just the facts are agreed
yeah the facts are all agreed it was there was yeah there really was nothing contested at that
point and then um it was really just a a matter of sentencing um at that point yeah so um i mean
yeah they're obviously pretty upset um but what was that upset about i mean obviously they'd be
disappointed what you did you did all that sort of stuff but like what have you talked about it
with them what was the big deal like for them really i think that i think they were worried
more than it yeah more than more than anything else um
you know i think the way um probably the way it happened the way they found out about it was it
was obviously a massive shock i mean it's never going to be an easy phone call to make or get or
see in the paper or whatever it is um so that was probably one of the worst parts um but then
i think you know our my lawyer was was really really good
um as far as putting everyone at ease as much as possible um really good at like talking through
the processes next steps what's going to be happening what to expect all that sort of thing so
i guess things were done to make that as easy as possible in a difficult time so here we go we got
it you've been convicted you did your time you know what are you doing with yourself now then
i'm actually working um i'm actually working for
the guy who was um who basically reported to asic um initially really so he's um he started his own
his own broker probably seven or eight years ago and after after i did a podcast a few years ago
um he was on the podcast for a little bit as well
um he said he wanted to catch up with me um we basically chatted and he offered me offered me a
job. So yeah, that's, yeah, it's quite ironic. And I've been there for almost three years now.
What are you doing? So data analytics or?
It's in the risk side. So yeah, it's about as ironic as you can get, I guess.
Risk being you're working in the department where the part of the business, I should say, where
they are assessing risks of people like yourself. Yeah. I mean, that's one part of the job is
looking for, I guess, suspicious type. Irregularity.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Irregularity, suspicious trading, not necessarily illegal, but frowned upon
card counting type situations. And also, other risks like
You know, hedging of our trades and that sort of thing. So there's a lot of data involved. Yes.
So I'm definitely still, I guess, using that, you know, that knowledge that I learned, you know,
through uni, through the ABS, just the applications. Vastly different, obviously, to what I was doing
previously. And are you doing anything else in relation to, apart from this podcast? I mean,
are you talking to people? I mean, you're helping others out. Are you sort of passing on your
experience to others? Yeah. I try to do as much as I can, or at least I take the opportunities when
they come. I'm not actively, I guess, marketing it out and trying to, but I certainly love,
you know, I've got quite a few contacts through universities now that,
and I might do, you know, two or three of those sorts of talks a year.
And they're the ones I really like doing at the universities. I have also been trying to write a
book and I've been doing it for a couple of years now. And I've been doing it for a couple of years.
I say trying, because at the moment it's just basically everything that pops into my head,
I'm just back from that time until now, essentially, and just putting it down. But it's,
yeah, I'm finding it quite challenging. Writing is hard.
Yeah. What have you learned about yourself
from this whole experience? Because you're still only relatively a young man.
Yeah. I think, like, I've definitely learned a lot of resilience.
That's probably a big one. The other big one for me is probably just how important, like,
the decision-making process, like we were talking about before, and how the brain can play
such a big impact in some of these, you know, potentially life-changing decisions that you make.
So, like, one of the other things I was doing is designing a course around
risk-taking and decision-making. And it's all about how, process information, how, when you can
come across new scenarios, that if you don't literally sit back and think about every possible
situation that can happen and how likely it is to happen, that there's no way you can make a
good decision if you don't do that. But what you find is that most people don't. And that's-
Especially young people.
Especially young people, yeah. You know, limited life experience at that point. And,
yeah, it's one of the things that I guess is I'm quite passionate about and I'm hoping,
to get that finished and then do some more presentations on that and send it out to people.
Well, you often hear about jail doesn't rehabilitate people,
and I'm sure it doesn't in a lot of cases. But, Chris Hill, it seems to me that in your
circumstances, you are rehabilitated. And I'm not making a judgment, it just seems that way to me.
And that you are trying to make, lead a different life, and you've learned from what you did.
And I really appreciate your honesty and your frankness. And, you know, just sitting down,
talking to someone like you, I can see how that sort of thing can happen. I just,
especially when you're 20, 21, 22, 23, the front of your brain is not even properly developed,
the part that makes the decisions. In some people, it doesn't develop properly into mid-20s. And,
who knows, any one of us could have done something similar if we had been,
if the seduction had been put in front of us at the time, any one of us.
Yeah, definitely.
With the testosterone flashing around the joint too, you know, appetite to risk,
relative to decision-making.
Stability. Lots of people can make mistakes, and it's good, actually, to talk to someone like you
who's made the mistake and, you know, acknowledges it, but actually tells us about the experience
in proper, like, real terms, what actually happened. So, mate, good luck to you. And
thanks very much for coming and being so honest.
No, thank you. Appreciate it. Cheers, Mark.
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