Conmen's Harleys up for sale by IRD

Donald Allen. Photo / NZ Herald

Tax inspectors who won a court order to recover $3million from two American fraudsters have put their last remaining possessions - four Harley-Davidson motorcycles - up for sale.

Bogus evangelist Donald Allen was jailed for fraud in 2004 for a $10 million get-rich-quick investment scam, at the time one of the biggest seen in this country.

With accomplice, fellow American Paul Palmer, Allen lured in more than 150 small-time Kiwi investors with offers of 435 per cent a year.

They spent nearly $3m on a luxurious lifestyle, including travel, a motor home, a limousine and several Harleys.

Palmer fled New Zealand in 2001 but was arrested on his return to the United States after a joint Serious Fraud Office and FBI investigation.

He was due to be released from a nine-year sentence in June.

Allen was jailed for six years and deported in April 2007 when he completed his prison term.

Inland Revenue has spent six years pursuing the pair's remaining assets, finally winning a judgement in the High Court in December last year.

It contended that asset transfers between the two men and a company, Silver Fern Trust, were in reality loans.

It is estimated that Inland Revenue spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to recover the pair's assets.

The four Harleys they managed to recoup have an estimated value of between $55,000 and $68,000.

Allen's lawyer, Charles Fletcher of Hamilton, said his client was dying of cancer in the United States and deserved to be left in peace.

He said Inland Revenue had been creative in its methods.