![\"Dominique](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/c3fcb0b98df6233daebcf6cccc5f6f8dd1369b47.jpeg\")
Dominique Grubisa leaving her Sydney home in November 2020.Nick Moir<\/p>\nIn May last year, a new company popped up in Hong Kong promising to help Australians flip property.<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s sole director lives in Belize \u2013 a Central American coastal country known for its reef, its gang violence and a slack international tax regime. His corporate profile suggests he\u2019s a \u201cghost director\u201d \u2013 a nominee who doesn\u2019t actually run the company, and who knows nothing about Australian property.<\/p>\n
Not long before this, a related company was set up in Wyoming \u2013 another tax haven \u2013 under another nominee director. This company provides online property mentoring, also to Australians.<\/p>\n
What binds these new, geographically distant businesses is a Sydney businesswoman, her cronies, and a sprawling, ever-morphing attempt to fleece ordinary Australians of their cash.<\/p>\n
Dominique Grubisa leaving her Sydney home in November 2020.Nick Moir<\/p>\n
Her name is Dominique Grubisa<\/a>, and for 13 years, this failed actor, bankrupt and soon-to-be struck-off lawyer used Facebook ads to sell bad advice about property investment.<\/p>\n A Federal Court judge has found her conduct<\/a> \u201cdeliberate and dishonest\u201d. The privacy commissioner said her businesses misused personal information when people were at their lowest ebb. The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal found her \u201cnot fit and proper\u201d to be a lawyer, recommending she be struck off.<\/p>\n But as Australia\u2019s sluggish regulators finally acted against her, Grubisa closed companies, changed their names and kept selling her dodgy product to a fresh supply of wannabe moguls.<\/p>\n \u201cBan me if you want, but nothing changes,\u201d she said after one setback. \u201cI keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n She might not be Australia\u2019s most successful scammer, but she\u2019s arguably the most persistent. The recent appearance of new companies offshore suggests, once again, that Grubisa\u2019s long con is morphing.<\/p>\n Standing against her for seven years has been a lone whistleblower. His name is Chris Baker. He used to be a property lawyer, and when he took her on, 600 or more of Grubisa\u2019s victims looked to him for help. In return, she\u2019s dismissed him, hired private investigators to target him and then lied about it.<\/p>\n At times, he has feared for his personal safety.<\/p>\n What Baker wants is simple \u2013 for those who police Australia\u2019s legal and financial systems to protect the unwary.<\/p>\n \u201cI just wish to not take calls from acutely suicidal people,\u201d he tells me. \u201cI want the harm stopped. Nothing more.\u201d<\/p>\n Dominique Eva Grubisa, nee Fitzsimons, grew up in a big house in Castlecrag on Sydney\u2019s lower north shore. She was schooled by nuns at the prestigious Monte Sant\u2019 Angelo College, but perhaps her real education was at the knee of her fraudster father.<\/p>\n In 2005, Christopher Ronald Fitzsimons was suspended as a solicitor for misappropriating what reports described as \u201cmany millions of dollars of clients\u2019 money\u201d \u2013 including from deceased estates and charities.<\/p>\n He\u2019d lost it all on the horses, spending not only his clients\u2019 money, but that of his wife, Maria, and daughter Louisa. Even after he was suspended, he kept banking and betting client cheques.<\/p>\n Fitzsimons tried to blame the TAB, which had installed a computer in his house and enabled him to bet on credit. He sued them and lost. Eventually, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for fraud. Grubisa\u2019s lawyer mother, Maria, was also struck off for her role in his crimes, but she was never charged.<\/p>\n Dominique grew up fancying herself a thespian. She applied in the 1980s to the National Institute of Dramatic Arts but was rejected. Videotapes of her later property seminars show her claiming an \u201cunkempt, hippy-looking, skinny girl\u201d called Cate Blanchett had stolen her life.<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cI believe that, too, was a lie,\u201d Baker says. \u201cFrom what I can make out, Blanchett didn\u2019t audition for NIDA until 1990, and Grubisa claims she auditioned straight out of school.\u201d That would have made it 1987.<\/p>\n Rejected, young Dominique fell back on the family trade, becoming a solicitor in 1994 and later gaining admission to the bar.<\/p>\n In 2008, Grubisa and husband, Kevin, lost money on the property market. Claiming to have learnt from the experience, in 2012 they started a new business, later named DG Institute, and Grubisa became its sole director.<\/p>\n In promotional literature, Grubisa promised to teach others how to avoid her mistakes \u2013 to get rich investing in property and protect hard-earned assets from debtors. Grubisa was the chief executive and frontwoman.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was performing the role of a highly successful entrepreneur,\u201d says one of her executives, whom this masthead agreed not to name for legal reasons. \u201cShe thought she was someone special, and when she walked down the street everyone knew who she was.\u201d <\/p>\n Husband Kevin was a director, secretary or shareholder of most of the companies in their stable, but Grubisa was the one calling the shots. There was also a sales team and a law firm, DGI Lawyers. In the background, Grubisa\u2019s struck-off parents were dispensing legal advice \u2013 her father signing legal and court correspondence<\/a> under the fake name \u201cChris Jackson\u201d, her mother named in a later tribunal finding as a \u201clay associate\u201d.<\/p>\n From 2017, the DG Institute\u2019s sales team was run by a man called Greg Klopper \u2013 who has a long history in the property-spruiking industry. Klopper had been named the previous year in a federal parliamentary committee report into investment seminars that \u201ctook advantage of retail investors with poor levels of financial literacy and often limited funds by persuading them to invest in high-risk, inappropriate schemes\u201d. There have never been findings against him.<\/p>\n But it was an apt description of Grubisa\u2019s business.<\/p>\n The former senior manager described Klopper trying to get a boiler room culture going. \u201cThere was a lot of ra-ra and the whole culture was built on fear.\u201d Salaries were 100 per cent commission, and some staff stayed less than a week.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the most unprofessional place I\u2019ve ever worked at in my 20-odd-year career,\u201d the man says.<\/p>\n He lasted three months.<\/p>\n Since 2012, Grubisa and her businesses have sold two ideas. The first is how ordinary people can build extraordinary wealth through property. The second is a convoluted method to stop any creditor taking their assets if they get into trouble.<\/p>\n In the property program, Real Estate Rescue, would-be tycoons were lured via Facebook ads to free seminars. In fancy hotels, with special guests who were unknowing participants, such as Jamie Durie, Grubisa performed as \u201cAustralia\u2019s leading wealth educator\u201d. She promised to teach people how to buy property at 10 to 40 per cent below market value. Witnesses say she was charismatic.<\/p>\n Those impressed by the promise were encouraged to pay $4500 and $7800 per head for the secret sauce \u2013 a course, a system and a closed Facebook group. Coaching videos show Grubisa teaching how to target \u201cmotivated\u201d sellers \u2013 people facing home repossession, bankruptcy, divorce or bereavement, who would be happy to sell property at knockdown prices.<\/p>\n \u2018Since being stung by her, I\u2019ve stepped back from doing a lot of things.\u2019<\/p>\n Belinda Mangroo<\/p>\n She told her clients to be ruthless. \u201cStay clear of discussing how much this is affecting their family, recent sicknesses, healthcare bills and the like. Your job is to move forward with your plan, not engage in family counselling,\u201d said some of her literature.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is the strategy,\u201d says Baker, \u201cof the vulture.\u201d<\/p>\n Says former participant Belinda Mangroo, Grubisa taught clients that they were doing these people a favour.<\/p>\n Key to this was Grubisa\u2019s fictional idea that banks \u201cgive no change\u201d \u2013 that if a bank sold property in a mortgagee\u2019s sale, it would keep not just the amount it was owed, but everything including the owner\u2019s equity. Offering distressed sellers even a tiny amount for the family home therefore meant they were better off.<\/p>\n \u201cI saw that as risky and dodgy,\u201d Mangroo says, \u201cbut somehow, I also believed the idea that we were potentially helping those motivated vendors because they were in a pickle. So it was a win-win.\u201d <\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, in the real world, putting this into practice was difficult. Some Real Estate Rescue clients got in trouble with angry vendors, or were embroiled in lawsuits, Baker says.<\/p>\n \u201cThe minute they questioned Grubisa or her staff, people told me they were chucked out of the group and other members were told not to contact them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I first came across Grubisa, I looked for negative reviews on Facebook but found none,\u201d Mangroo says. \u201cIn hindsight, I guess she was spending a lot of time scrubbing them.\u201d<\/p>\n Mangroo never made a transaction \u2013 a fact she\u2019s now profoundly grateful for. But she invested almost $15,000 in Grubisa\u2019s products, and for six months was in \u201chook, line and sinker\u201d.<\/p>\n Editor’s pick It left its mark.<\/p>\n \u201cSince being stung by her, I\u2019ve stepped back from doing a lot of things because I doubt myself and I worry,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s been a terrible thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Grubisa\u2019s second key offering was called Master Wealth Control. Her experience as a lawyer, she claimed, allowed her to devise a special structure \u2013 a \u201cVestey trust\u201d, which acted as an \u201cinvisible force field\u201d protecting assets against creditors and the government. It included ongoing support \u201cso that you are constantly protected\u201d.<\/p>\n The documents to establish and run these trusts were supplied exclusively by DG Institute at a cost of $6500 to $9200 annually. Only Grubisa could work this magic, she claimed, because: \u201cNo one at my level of expertise as a lawyer had ever really looked in detail at that area of law before.\u201d <\/p>\n Much later, the Federal Court found these structures bore no resemblance to \u201cany transaction or structure ever undertaken or implemented by any member of the Vestey family\u201d. They also contained an \u201cobvious flaw \u2026 a matter of commonsense which would be readily appreciated by anyone with elementary legal knowledge\u201d.<\/p>\n And they didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n Says Baker: \u201cI know numerous people who went bankrupt relying on this advice. Among them was a lawyer.\u201d<\/p>\n Those delving more deeply into Grubisa\u2019s world were steered into a third scheme, the Elite Mentoring Program. This was for the inner circle \u2013 those seeking extra property advice, access to finance and a more exclusive Facebook group. The price for entry varied from $50,000 at its peak to a \u201cdiscounted\u201d $20,000.<\/p>\n Baker describes it as \u201ccult-like\u201d.<\/p>\n Becky Thompson was lured in at Grubisa\u2019s free seminar. It became her nightmare.<\/p>\n In 2015, Thompson had been hit by a car. She ended up with a $60,000 payout and an incurable condition that causes multiple seizures a day. In 2022, when she saw a Facebook ad for Grubisa\u2019s course, Thompson was walking with a cane and was racked by seizures.<\/p>\n But the spectacle at the seminar swept her away.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so slick. The food, the lighting, the music. It\u2019s not like you\u2019re meeting at a budget hotel, they\u2019re huge events,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd Dominique will mingle among the crowd \u2013 it\u2019s all about the self-belief and the quotes, the testimonies given. She\u2019ll meet you one on one. It\u2019s like she\u2019s got this godlike status. She\u2019s like the guru.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you start believing: \u2018This is something I can do; I can be a property mogul\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n To Thompson, what underpinned it all was that Grubisa was a barrister. It seemed an instant sign of trustworthiness. She signed up and paid $20,000 \u2013 the special discount rate \u2013 to join the clique.<\/p>\n Elite Mentoring\u2019s key offering was a \u201cleads list\u201d. Strip-mined from lists in the Family, Supreme and Federal Courts, it included the names and addresses, including Google Maps links, of the homes of people in distress, or details of lawyers handling deceased estates.<\/p>\n Thompson says she was told to find a property using the list and Grubisa\u2019s company would supply finance. The only way to fail, the guru insisted, was if you were lazy \u2013 known as \u201cworking below the line\u201d.<\/p>\n Thompson\u2019s problems began immediately. The list was useless.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were 300 participants hitting a list of 60 people \u2013 divorcees and deceased estates and their lawyers. But the lawyers wouldn\u2019t get back to you. Some of the law firms didn\u2019t exist, the email addresses don\u2019t work, phone numbers are disconnected or they\u2019re out of business.\u201d<\/p>\n To Grubisa, these difficulties were just excuses. \u201cShe\u2019s very good at making you think you\u2019re crazy,\u201d Thompson says. She became so desperate to land a deal that Grubisa encouraged her to walk the streets knocking on doors to find distressed sellers.<\/p>\n As a younger woman, Thompson had been homeless \u2013 so \u201cmy motivation is, \u2018I never want to live under a bridge again\u2019.\u201d Grubisa knew this, and when Thompson found herself $13,000 short while struggling to pay both her course fees and secure a property, Grubisa \u201cused my fear of homelessness against me\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThey said, \u2018You\u2019re going to live under a bridge again if you don\u2019t pay us this money\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Thompson borrowed from a friend. She bought a property \u2013 not as an investment but as her home \u2013 but left Grubisa\u2019s program. She says she\u2019d spent $40,000 and bought nothing but stress, which worsened her seizures and wrecked her marriage.<\/p>\n \u201cMy husband and I separated. We\u2019re still trying to forgive each other. The fact that she nearly made me homeless, stressed my credit rating \u2013 and the fact that she got under my radar has perturbed me more than anything,\u201d Thompson says.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, I don\u2019t know who to trust.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2019, about seven years after Dominique Grubisa began selling pipe dreams, Brisbane-based Chris Baker read an online article lionising her property expertise.<\/p>\n A Google search led him to a Facebook page with 1300 disgruntled former acolytes. \u201cI was shocked,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Baker is motivated by a strong sense that Grubisa must face justice \u2013 for all her legal scrapes she has not faced criminal prosecution \u2013 and a feeling of responsibility for the hundreds of victims he comforted and counselled. Seven years on, he wishes he\u2019d never begun.<\/p>\n \u201cMy intention wasn\u2019t to spend my life looking over my shoulder,\u201d he says. \u201cMy intention was to go to the Law Society of NSW, the [Australian Competition and Consumer Commission]. I thought, \u2018They\u2019ll do their job and see the harm, and they\u2019ll act\u2019, because I\u2019ve got faith in these organisations.<\/p>\n \u201cI hadn\u2019t seen at the time how failed they were.\u201d<\/p>\n It was 2019 when Baker, on behalf of a client, first complained to the NSW Law Society, which is responsible for regulating legal practice. He said DG Institute was providing unqualified legal advice. The next month, he referred Grubisa\u2019s practices to the ACCC.<\/p>\n Shortly after contacting the society, Baker got calls from men calling themselves \u201cAndre Ronvegas\u201d and \u201cRichard Brenchley\u201d. As he later found out, these were the fake names of private investigators hired by Grubisa\u2019s company.<\/p>\n Baker pressed on. Later that year, he informed the Family Court that Grubisa was misusing its court lists. He went to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, which forwarded his confidential evidence to Grubisa herself. It later apologised.<\/p>\n As he saw it, those whose job it was to protect consumers were dragging their feet. The ACCC initially decided not to act. It told Baker it was \u201cnot always the best agency to deal with particular consumer issues\u201d, referring the case to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.<\/p>\n Between 2019 and 2021, he sent numerous of Grubisa\u2019s webinars to the law society to demonstrate the claims she was making. He says his messages were not acknowledged.<\/p>\n He took clients\u2019 complaints to the Australian Taxation Office and to ASIC. In 2020, the Family Court referred the apparent misuse of its court lists to the Australian Federal Police. They investigated but it went nowhere.<\/p>\n Baker and two Sydney lawyers went to the NSW police in 2021. He referred Grubisa \u2013 whose practising certificate as a lawyer was in Victoria \u2013 to the Victorian Legal Services Board.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Grubisa\u2019s business kept luring people in. She told this masthead in 2020 that complaints were part of a \u201cvendetta\u201d against her, and that regulators had \u201cdismissed or discarded\u201d them.<\/p>\n It took three years \u2013 until April 2022 \u2013 before ASIC imposed a four-year ban on her being involved with credit and financial services businesses. She had a habit of not telling the truth, it said in a press release, and was \u201cnot a fit and proper person to deliver financial services\u201d.<\/p>\n In June that year, the Victorian Legal Services Board \u2013 where she had her practising certificate \u2013 ruled that she was no longer entitled to practise.<\/p>\n Grubisa responded quickly. She rebranded.<\/p>\n DG Institute morphed into a fresh company, Property Lovers Pty Ltd, and migrated its clients across. DGI Lawyers became Assure Lawyers with a new director. DGI Debt Management and DGI Accounting went into liquidation. Liquidators\u2019 reports questioned whether Grubisa, as director, had breached her duties and if the companies had traded while insolvent. No prosecutions ensued, but ASIC disqualified her from managing companies for 18 months.<\/p>\n![\"Campaigner](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/febacf3d0ded3716fe28d83a6c12ed2ef17cbea0.jpeg\")
Campaigner and whistleblower Chris Baker. A Current Affair<\/p>\n![\"Dominique](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0eab97b5c7f06fb17966faf7c689edee6d332d74.jpeg\")
Dominique Grubisa has promoted her legal profession history.<\/p>\n![\"Dominique](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/c748cfbda7789fdef7f589c4a492cd81e48129304355a22b9e65816e563df93b.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Dominique](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/f8a6ea35caebc1fb0543dbd67371d700d5f64dba.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Becky](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/7619ea8eee56ce252ed78952705d11cc6224c56e.jpeg\")
Becky Thompson says Dominique Grubisa\u2019s scams cost her thousands.<\/p>\n![\"Becky](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/99d15f81fb9128426fffa8d86febd9b9af47f7f3.jpeg\")
Becky Thompson rides horses as part of her recovery from a brain injury.<\/p>\n![\"Dominique](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/e50dce9705fdc159889f13e23ff80227a9ac0c69.jpeg\")
Dominique Grubisa selling her get-wealthy schemes.<\/p>\n![\"Facebook](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1a27a79b7d47fe683c204c8ec1c9b068564d3cf46dbae5aba93bf964360ac039.jpeg\")
Facebook ads for Property Lovers.<\/p>\n