“The suspected contraventions arise from suspicions held by ASIC that Mr McCabe misled clients to deposit funds with Guevara Capital Access and Online Trading Capital for the purpose of trading foreign exchange currencies to generate high returns.

“ASIC suspects that Mr McCabe led clients to believe that ‘live’ trades were being made, when in fact the trades were simulated on the demo or test accounts.” Allen added that ASIC suspects that McCabe misappropriated the clients’ funds for personal use including for private school fees.

McCabe was bankrupted in 2020 after failing to pay legal fees. His bankruptcy trustee refused in 2021 to discharge his bankruptcy amid concerns McCabe had not provided proper information to his trustee during the course of 2020.

McCabe hit the headlines in 2018 after Guevara Capital’s Twitter account made a racist and sexist tweet about high-profile AMP director Ming Long. In response, respected finance journalist Alan Kohler asked Qantas to remove an interview between Kohler and McCabe for its inflight magazine from 2016. The advertisement on 2GB appears to have run in 2015 or 2016 before the station was under the ownership of Nine.

McCabe told The Age and Herald that he was not responsible for the offending tweet. “I never had the Twitter carriage service you refer to,” he said.]

ASIC alleges McCabe was running his schemes from at least September 2015, though it has suspicions it was running from 2014. ASIC suspects the scheme was running until the regulator applied for the freezing orders.

McCabe allegedly used the same “modus operandi” with several customers, drawing them into the schemes through high-profile advertisements and the promise of 20 per cent returns. Customers were also attracted by the schemes’ promise of providing normal consumers with access to cash funds usually used by high-powered investment banks.

“What you’re basically doing is entering a world where an elite institutional trader would be entering – and trading money on behalf of a fund or a private pool,” Guevara Capital’s website read, according to ASIC.

After two days of training and access to McCabe via text message, investors then joined the trading site that offered a program of trades for investors to follow.

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“Shortly after signing up, clients were offered discounts to encourage them to invest further funds in order to move to a higher tier which would grant them to invest further funds,” ASIC’s Allen alleged in her affidavit. However, Allen alleges clients often believed they had made losses by placing the trades recommended.

ASIC told the court it would require the freezing orders so it could complete its investigations and urged other customers to come forward or to obtain legal advice on their next steps.

“Certain of the evidence uncovered by ASIC would be available to consumers who wished to pursue their own action against Mr McCabe,” ASIC’s Allen wrote in her affidavit.

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