A Gold Coast property developer, David McWilliams, has appeared in court after being charged with 13 criminal offences over an alleged $10 million fraud. The corporate regulator has accused him of spending money raised for disability housing on a luxury car, cryptocurrency and a regional pub.
McWilliams appeared in the Southport Magistrates Court following an investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) into the alleged misuse of investor funds earmarked for specialist disability accommodation under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). If convicted, he faces up to 20 years' imprisonment.
ASIC alleges that McWilliams, acting as a company director, dishonestly used investor funds and otherwise caused detriment to his company, totalling $10,138,587. The money had been raised to build specialist disability accommodation - purpose-built housing for NDIS participants - across Queensland and Western Australia. A further charge relates to an allegedly false or misleading statement that the regulator says induced investors to back one of the projects.
According to ASIC, the alleged misconduct occurred between July 2021 and October 2023, when more than $10 million raised for specific developments was instead directed to unrelated purposes. The regulator alleges those purposes included an Aston Martin, cryptocurrency, a pub in Whyalla, an investment in a Seychelles-based litigation funder and a luxury high-rise apartment in Surfers Paradise for McWilliams' wife. Of the six accommodation projects tied to the charges, work began on only one. None were completed.
ASIC opened its investigation on July 17 2024, examining McWilliams, his wife Laura Fullarton and the ALAMMC group of companies over suspected breaches of the Corporations Act and the Queensland Criminal Code, as set out in ASIC's media release on the McWilliams charges. The probe was triggered by information from the Queensland Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation, which had flagged that McWilliams was gambling significant sums at The Star casino - money it suspected had been raised from investors for property developments.
Receivers later appointed to the ALAMMC companies found that more than $90 million had been raised from over 500 investors for disability accommodation. The Federal Court granted freezing orders in September 2024 to preserve assets, and in October 2025 ordered the companies wound up on just and equitable grounds. ASIC has also pursued criminal contempt proceedings against McWilliams and Fullarton over alleged breaches of those freezing orders; a four-day trial concluded in mid-June 2026, with judgment reserved. The current charges are being prosecuted by the Commonwealth Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The matter lands in court amid a sharper enforcement posture from ASIC, which has signalled that directors' duties and governance failures remain among its priorities. The allegations also sharpen a live debate about where investor losses ultimately fall. Industry bodies have argued that professional indemnity insurance is poorly suited to covering fraud, because such policies respond to professional negligence rather than criminal conduct – a tension now driving pressure on the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort. The McWilliams case could be a reminder that, when fraud is alleged, the question of who bears the loss rarely has a tidy answer.
