“Those payments left Special Gold unable to pay its debts, including tax liabilities, which in turn led to penalties and interest liabilities. The payments from the SBI account … appear to be in breach of the freezing orders,” the judge found.

Thyge Trafford-Jones was appointed administrator of Special Gold on December 6, 2023, and six weeks later became the liquidator of the company.

Miryam Fayad with her husband, bankrupt property developer Fayad-Lee Fayad.Credit: Facebook

With the backing of the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), which is owed $32 million by Special Gold, Trafford-Jones has been following the complex money trail, trying to trace what the Fayads did with the proceeds from the Argyle Street sale.

The court heard that Sam Fayad, 65, also channelled $4.5 million from Special Gold’s accounts to companies associated with Rami Ayoub. The court heard that Ayoub charged fees of more than $100,000 to be Sam Fayad’s intermediary, paying money to others at his direction. While the judge found Ayoub was “evasive” and some aspects of his evidence were “unsatisfactory”, he determined that Ayoub was not liable for the millions which flowed through his companies, as he had no knowledge of Special Gold.

The judge also noted that none of the Fayads appeared at the hearing and that the week before, Fayad-Lee, 43, and Remon, 37, declared bankruptcy. Their father was bankrupted on September 14, 2023, and has debts in excess of $2.8 billion.

Despite declaring on his bankruptcy forms that he began experiencing financial difficulties in September 2023, Remon Fayad splashed more than $3 million on his extravagant wedding in Tuscany in July last year. Sam Fayad and his wife, Maria, flew first class to enjoy the three-day nuptials of their son and his bride, Shauna Diaz.

Remon denied during an earlier court hearing in February that the $6.8 million he had used to buy a luxury motor yacht in 2021 had come from Special Gold funds. He said the yacht had later been transferred as part of a settlement deed with B & G Properties, a company associated with hotelier and developer Michael Barakat. B & G had first bankrupted Sam Fayad and then pursued his sons, who came to a settlement with the company.

When they declared themselves bankrupt on July 3, Fayad-Lee owed $17 million to the ATO while Remon owed $15 million.

Meanwhile, the Herald recently revealed that one of Rami Ayoub’s companies was forcing the sale of Sam Fayad’s family mansion and another house in the same street in Constitution Hill. In his bankruptcy statement, Fayad claimed he had borrowed $21 million from an Ayoub company.

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Emerging as the mystery buyer is Miryam Fayad, Sam’s daughter-in-law, who recently forked out $5 million to buy the two properties.

Last year, Miryam, the 36-year-old wife of Fayad-Lee, who does not have a job, spent another $5 million buying three other family properties in the street, including her own family home, which she bought from her husband for $3.2 million.

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