His memory isn’t good either.
John Changjin Li pictured at Lake Macquarie in 2022.
Li couldn’t recall what year his former wife Athena Changren Cheng came to Australia, nor whether she worked or started a business when she arrived, even though they shared the same Vaucluse home.
He couldn’t recall why a series of international bank transfers were made from his accounts to Indonesia, including one labelled as “Police HQ Jakarta”, nor why Athena was at one stage making regular $10,000 deposits to his account. The name of his Westpac private banker eluded him.
“Why do you ask these types of stupid questions? Why?”
Adding to the opaque nature of Li’s affairs is a lack of company records to shed light on the financial position of property investment companies Vaucluse 29 Pty Ltd, Bayview 66 Pty Ltd and One Lake Macquarie Pty Ltd.
The court was told Li and Athena divorced in 2015 while still in China. “Athena filed for divorce because I did what most men would do and slept with another woman. It’s a common problem with men,” Li said, claiming legal privilege throughout his testimony.
The Vaucluse house where Athena Cheng lived after she arrived in Australia in 2019, often shared with her former husband John Li.
Following their divorce, the former couple continued to share their Shanghai mansion because it was so large – 6000 square metres internally and set on a 30,000 square metre block – they could live there separately.
But Li took exception to suggestions that the couple lived together in China or at their current shared address in Point Piper. “What does ‘live with Athena’ mean? Define this,” Li said. “Since the divorce I don’t live in the same room as Athena.”
The court heard Li moved to Australia in 2017 as a guardian to his then 15-year-old daughter “Rose” Zhirou Li, then a student at exclusive girls private school Kambala. Two years later, Athena joined them in Australia, and all three resided – predominantly but not solely – at a Vaucluse property Athena had owned in her name since 2010.
Neither John nor Athena are Australian residents.
Attempts to serve Athena with a summons to appear in court are yet to be successful.
Li was also unable to offer much insight into Athena’s affairs, including her role as chair of Jinluan International Group, a mining, real estate and biotechnology conglomerate in China.
“There are lots of companies called Jinluan in China,” he said.
That is despite acknowledging that he has authority to access her bank accounts. “I’m her assistant sometimes.”
Li was also surprised when he was told by the liquidator’s barrister Evan Walker that Athena was listed as a dishonest debtor before she left China in 2019. And it was news to him that she had also been hit with consumption restriction orders aimed at limiting any high-value spending to enforce a debt recovery.
Daughter Rose was better informed.
“When she’s in China she’s a very famous and successful business leader,” Rose said.
Rose told the court she was aware of financial pressures on her mother before she left China, and of a bribery investigation in 2015, but she was assured it was nothing to worry about. “I was only 12 or 13 years old at the time.”
China’s internet search engine Baidu has a page dedicated to Athena as chair of the Jinluan International Group, and mentions the 2015 investigation on suspicion of bribery and 2019 consumption restriction orders.
In 2020, a year after Athena moved to Australia, Li went on a high-end property buying spree totalling $123 million, most of it allegedly financed by Athena.
Athena Changren Cheng, chair of Jinluan International Group, has a page dedicated to her on the China’s Internet search engine Baidu.Credit: Baidu
The first was a house in Vaucluse for $10.9 million by the entity Vaucluse 29 Pty Ltd. Ten days later Bayview 66 Pty Ltd bought a house in Bayview for $11.5 million, followed by a $6 million holiday home on Lake Macquarie called Mandalay by the aptly named One Lake Macquarie Pty Ltd.
All three of those property investment companies are the subject of the liquidator’s inquiries.
Li’s prime purchase was the $95 million Point Piper mansion, Edgewater, by his company Point Piper One Pty Ltd. At the time, it ranked as the second-highest house sale in the country.
By year’s end, Li had moved into Edgewater, despite having not settled on the entirety of it five years later.
The Edgewater mansion in Point Piper exchanged in 2020 for $95 million. Half of the sale settled in 2023 for $47.5 million. The other half is yet to settle.Credit: Domain
Unbeknown to Li’s friends, daughter, former wife and his parents, Edgewater was intended to be the matrimonial home of Li and his long-time friend Maria Meihong Yang. The 100 shares in all four property-holding companies were to be held by Maria, financed by Athena, and controlled by John Li.
Not that the directors of these property companies knew such things.
Athena’s nephew, “Robin” Ruobin Hua, was the sole director of the three companies when each one purchased properties in Vaucluse, Bayview and Lake Macquarie. But when he visited the family’s Lake Macquarie house for Christmas lunch, he did so thinking he was a guest of his aunt Athena, not the sole director of the company that owned it.
The house in Vaucluse owned by the company Vaucluse 29 Pty Ltd for $26.29 million.Credit: domain
Likewise, when the then 28-year-old was invited to a family dinner at the newly purchased house in Vaucluse, he did not know of his place in its ownership structure.
Li’s estranged wife Maria told the court she knew she held the shares in these companies, but she only found out that Point Piper One had purchased Edgewater when she read about it in this masthead.
Rose, now 23, said she didn’t know she had been appointed a director of One Lake Macquarie until about a year later, when her father told her he had done so to ensure the safety of the company.
Nor did Rose know that Maria was married to her father, albeit now estranged. “I just thought she was a friend of the family’s.”
Even Athena seemed upset when she discovered the marriage, according to Li’s associate and preferred real estate agent Nina Sokolov. “Everyone was shocked.”
It was love, said Li, rejecting suggestions Maria was granted ownership of the property-holding companies purely because she is an Australian resident and therefore didn’t require approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board.
You don’t have to live with, eat with and sleep with someone for it to be a love marriage, he said.
Maria felt somewhat differently. When she discovered in mid-2022 that Li had moved to Edgewater with Athena and that her shares in Point Piper One Pty Ltd had been voided without her consent, the marriage broke down.
Maria returned to live in her unit in Zetland and began legal proceedings to have her ownership of Point Piper One reinstated, and the other three companies ordered into provisional liquidation.
The ownership behind Edgewater is still in dispute in separate Supreme Court proceedings.
All that glitters
In 2021, Li and Athena’s majority-owned goldmine PT Sultan Rafli Mandiri (SRM) in Indonesia’s West Kalimantan region was sealed by the authorities.
It has not reopened since.
While the SRM goldmine has been out of operation, Li’s property interests have made substantial gains.
The Bayview house owned by Bayview 66 Pty Ltd was sold after 14 months for $15 million. Despite a jump in value of $4.5 million, and no capital gains tax having been paid, Li said he made no money from it because any profit had to pay off the loan to Athena.
The Bayview house was purchased by the company Bayview 66 Pty Ltd in 2020 for $11.5 million and sold 14 months later for $15 million.Credit: Domain
Records show that the loan was executed four months after the purchase was settled. Li disputes when it was settled and the loan deed executed.
A few months later, the Vaucluse house owned by Vaucluse 29 Pty Ltd sold for $26.29 million.
Again, Li rebutted Walker’s suggestion that it made a gain of $15 million because the interest rates payable to Athena left him nothing. No capital gains tax was paid.
Interpol Red Alert list: Li Rongmei. Wanted for “illegal gold fencing”.Credit: Interpol Red Notice
Not all of the proceeds of the Vaucluse house sale went to Athena, however. Li’s bank records show that $1.56 million was transferred to an account labelled “Mitra Police HQ Jakarta”.
It isn’t the only intriguing international transfer from Li’s bank account that took place in the year after the SRM mine was sealed.
Among them was $521,000 to an Indonesian account labelled PT Handak PHQ Operation, $37,163 to Intl PT Hendak Indomitra, $14,830 to Int Zhang Guo XOperation, $142,000 to Intl PT Mitra Internal Affairs, and $57,811 to an account labelled Int Li Rongmei.
Li Rongmei is Li’s younger sister and the former financial director of the SRM goldmine. She is listed on Interpol’s Red Notice list on charges of “illegal gold fencing” more commonly known as dealing in illicit gold.
According to a judgment recently handed down by the South Jakarta District Court, submitted evidence shows that Li is also listed on the Interpol Red Notice list, although unpublished, and a fugitive warrant was issued for him in February 2022 for allegedly violating the Mineral and Coal Mining Law.
The judgment was the result of proceedings initiated by two other SRM board members, who successfully sued for a company restructure given the legal issues besetting some of the company’s senior executives, and the fact that neither Li nor Athena are in the country any longer.
In that judgment, Li dismisses claims he had fled the country, saying he left Indonesia to seek legal protection in China given injustices in the legal process in Indonesia.
Sold, not sold
By the time liquidators were appointed to the companies, the Vaucluse and Bayview properties had been sold, but not the holiday home at Lake Macquarie. What’s more, a $6 million rebuild of it remains only partly complete.
Mandalay was a six-bedroom, six-bathroom mansion on almost three hectares of absolute waterfront in Lake Macquarie when purchased by the Li family company in 2020. Credit: Domain
Was Li upset about liquidators taking control of the company that owned his dream house, where he wanted to retire at Lake Macquarie? Walker asked Nina Sokolov.
He might have appeared upset, Nina said.
Nina denied Walker’s suggestion that she talked to Li about how they might try to stop the property from being taken over by Maria and the liquidators.
Instead, Nina said she was just asked to sell it.
The following year, the half-built house at Lake Macquarie – and then under the control of Athena’s finance company Athena Rose Capital – went to auction mortgage-in-possession.
Raine & Horne agent Nina Sokolov is John Li’s preferred agent, selling all the properties owned by his investment companies.Credit: Kate Geraghty
Initially, it wasn’t a successful auction because it was passed in, but in the post-auction negotiations that followed, Athena’s nephew Robin emerged as the successful $4 million buyer. The house next door, also owned by the same stressed company and in the control of Athena Rose Capital, was also sold to Robin for $2.5 million.
How were you going to pay the $6.5 million for the properties? asked Walker.
Robin, who is currently unemployed and set to start a graduate job in auditing in the new year, rejected Walker’s suggestion that the purchase money was going to come from Li or Athena, saying he thought his parents might pay for it.
“Do you think that your parents have $6.5 million?” asked Walker.
“I don’t think so,” said Robin.
Who paid the $650,000 deposit for the properties?
“I think [it was] probably negotiated with my aunty,” Robin said.
Settlement has long since passed with no completion. There is currently a separate legal dispute in the Supreme Court between Athena Rose Capital and the liquidators of One Lake Macquarie Pty Ltd over who is entitled to the proceeds of any sale.
The liquidator’s investigation continues.
With Karuni Rompies