Fraudster boasted of ties to US President

Christian Glennie. Photo / APN

He boasted of Russian brides, diamond rings and phone calls from Barack Obama in a bid to buy lavish properties, fast cars and a sleek $1.6 million launch with money he never had.

But Christian John Glennie left nothing more than a string of empty-handed car dealers, real estate agents and two victims who lost more than $125,000 believing they would be repaid from the "millions" held in overseas bank accounts.

Police are now using the 68-year-old's bizarre trail of delusion - in which Glennie himself was swindled by foreign scammers - as a warning to other would-be fraudsters.

The guilty verdict delivered to Glennie covered 36 fraud-related charges for crimes between December 2005 and June 2009 - all committed on the basis he was waiting for cash from overseas that never came.

One of the first real estate agents Glennie dealt with was convinced he had sold a $3 million estate in Martinborough to Glennie. He was told Glennie was waiting for $32 million to be released from banks including the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York.

"He turned up with a guy from deep in the south in a brand new Range Rover, and the guy in the South Island was in the Hereford Breeders Association and even knew the vendor ... so I thought, yeah, this guy's kosher," Andrew Scott said last night.

The unconditional offer to buy the property was accepted yet the 10 per cent deposit never came from Glennie, who was waiting for a $20.5 million return from a "venture" in Nigeria. The dud deal meant Mr Scott missed out on a $70,000 commission and wasted 50 hours of his time chasing up the money.

At a car dealership in Tauranga, Glennie produced various documents and spoke of a $25 million sum to back up an offer to buy two Nissan Navara utes and an Audi Q7 valued at between $130,000 and $140,000. A Tauranga boat dealer was also caught out when he drove Glennie to Auckland to view a 15m $1.6 million Riviera launch which he apparently needed for a Russian bride. Estate agent Peter Worley, who showed Glennie a number of properties before he finally picked a top-end $1.3 million estate in an upmarket Tauranga street, was sold the same line.

An Auckland man was told of a Nigerian pipeline contract and lent Glennie $72,300 to "free up" cash from overseas. A woman, who said Glennie claimed he was a money broker, gave him more than $53,000.

During Glennie's five-day trial at the Tauranga District Court last month, he claimed to be in correspondence with US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as Nigeria's president. All three world leaders were said to be helping him to obtain his funds from various offshore banks.

In a written decision released this week, Judge John McDonald found him guilty of 36 charges and acquitted him on charges relating to the launch and Martinborough estate. He said he had given "anxious consideration" to whether Glennie, who sent the Auckland victims' money to scammers overseas through Western Union, genuinely believed he would get a return.

"Ultimately I have reached the conclusion that, while he might not have wanted to admit it to himself, he must have known that he was tied up in a scam. And I can only assume that the need to feel important or appear rich and powerful or the thrill or elation in being able to deceive people has taken over."

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