3 hours ago
1
A former NSW police officer-turned barrister has had his assets frozen by a Sydney court following allegations from Swiss authorities that he may have embezzled $US36.5 million ($55.8 million).
Barrister Evatt Tamine, who was granted immunity against prosecution, was to be the key witness at the trial of his former boss, Texan billionaire Robert T. Brockman, in a case described by prosecutors as the “largest ever tax charge against an individual in the United States”.
Australian barrister Evatt Tamine at his Balmain residence in May 2020.Credit: Dean Sewell
But Brockman, who made his fortune providing software to car dealerships, died in August 2022 before his case went to trial. The 81-year-old billionaire was facing 39 charges, including wire fraud, money-laundering, tax evasion, evidence tampering and conspiracy.
Tamine, 61, is now facing allegations that he misappropriated millions of dollars from the trust funds he was controlling on Brockman’s behalf. In August 2025, the Supreme Court of Bermuda granted a “worldwide proprietary asset preservation and freezing injunction” against Tamine and various companies.
Tamine studied law while working at Newtown police station in Sydney and later moved to the tax haven of Bermuda, where he began working for Brockman in 2004.
According to a Texas District Court judgment in 2022, Tamine “helped Brockman illegally conceal assets offshore” by creating a complex network of offshore companies and trusts. At Brockman’s direction, he also helped set up Swiss bank accounts to allegedly help Brockman evade $US2 billion in taxes owed to the Internal Revenue Service.
During a search warrant executed at Tamine’s Bermudan home and a storage unit in September 2018, US investigators seized more than 90 terabytes of information on 20 digital devices, some of which were concealed in a child’s game box.
“Decrypted email conversations between Brockman and his business associates obtained in the Tamine raid discuss the falsification, backdating, concealment and destruction of documents,” said Texas District Court judge George C. Hanks.
Judge Hanks also noted that “Brockman went to great lengths to keep the IRS – which he called ‘The House’ – from learning about his connections to the various entities and properties.” Brockman used an encrypted private email server to communicate with Tamine, giving him the codename Redfish while calling himself Permit, the court heard.
During a 2022 Texas District court hearing to determine whether Brockman was fit to stand trial, Tamine testified that on one occasion, at Brockman’s request, he travelled to the home of a recently deceased business associate of Brockman’s to destroy documents and hard drives. Tamine later wrote in an email that Brockman could “rest easily that any attempt to search [the associate’s] home would be fruitless”.
The Texas court also heard that as Tamine began to face increased scrutiny, he sent an email to Brockman suggesting that they establish “shell companies” in an “escape jurisdiction” as well as using an Australian lawyer to keep a “hidden fund” for them. The court heard this was to “cover [their] tracks so that they could avoid disclosing where other accounts are held”.
The late billionaire Robert Brockman was accused of hiding to conceal about $2 billion in income from the US Internal Revenue Service.Credit:
In late September, Frank J. Jackson, a US attorney assisting the Brockman family, took action in the NSW Supreme Court to freeze Tamine’s Australian assets pending the outcome of the case in Bermuda.
NSW land title records show that since 2015, Tamine has purchased, unencumbered, seven properties. In 2023, Tamine bought three townhouses in Bulli, north of Wollongong, and a house in Killarney Vale on the Central Coast. He owns three Balmain properties, the most expensive a Darling Street house bought in August 2019 for $7.5 million.
The NSW Supreme Court also heard that Jackson submitted that “in excess of AUD $22 million has been transferred by Mr Tamine to entities associated with a lawyer in Australia”. ASIC searches of the entities listed in court reveal the lawyer is Glenn Ferguson, formerly the president of the Queensland Law Society. There is no suggestion that Ferguson was knowingly involved in any wrongdoing.
In a judgment last Friday, NSW Supreme Court Justice Peter Brereton said that the court has made orders freezing Tamine’s assets in Australia up to the value of $US36,500,000. “That figure is derived from letters from the Public Prosecutor Office of the Republic and Canton of Geneva and the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police that allege that Mr Tamine had embezzled or misappropriated funds up to that amount,” the judge said.
Victorian Italianate mansion Hexham was purchased by expat barrister Evatt Tamine for $7.5m in 2019.Credit: Dean Sewell
He also noted that the Bermudan proceedings only foreshadow the possibility “that Mr Tamine has embezzled funds”.
Jackson, acting for the Brockman estate, submitted to the NSW court that Tamine, “by his own admission, is a person who is not only skilled at concealing assets from authorities by deploying sophisticated strategies but has engaged in the exercise of destroying evidence”.
The NSW court heard that Tamine sent a memo to his boss in 2017 highlighting his performance over the previous year.
“I would say that without hesitation, 2016 has been my best year. I established beyond any doubt that I can work under pressure with the added threat of detention hanging over me, all for the sake of protecting” an offshore charitable trust in Brockman’s name.
In the same memo, “Mr Tamine referred to trips to Oxford at short notice, including to destroy computer drives that had been discovered,” the court heard.
In another memo, Tamine named an Australian lawyer who could be used to hide assets from Brockman. In the memo, Tamine also referred to the “need to muddy the waters about where I am located” and that with certain strategies, it would become “harder to track me down”.
Justice Brereton observed that it is possible that “this evidence could all have an innocent explanation.” However, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary from Tamine, “the evidence supports the proposition that there is a possibility that Mr Tamine would take steps to hide or surreptitiously remove assets from Australia”.
Tamine is understood to be living in England.
Tamine applied to the NSW Supreme Court in October to overturn certain ancillary orders that had previously been made by the court. While the freezing orders were maintained, Justice Brereton last week rejected some of Jackson’s submissions, which would have required Tamine to provide extensive information, including details on the $22 million in transfers to Australia.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
Most Viewed in National
Loading
