Eric Thompson stars as Derek Turner in The Million Dollar Con Man
“I’ve come from basically the … [bottom end] of the world, New Zealand … there’s only one-way for me to go, that’s up” – Derek Turner.
Through an improbably simple scam involving a phoney hedge fund and the gift of the gab, New Zealand’s biggest conman Derek Turner (Erik Thomson – All Saints, The Alice) took the life savings of scores of people and lived a life of luxury around the world. On Thursday, June 5th at 8:30pm on TV3, his story is told in the docu-drama The Million Dollar Con Man.
Turner’s outlandish career began by overthrowing a company he wasn’t even an investor in and stretched to pitching to rebuild the World Trade Centre. His undoing came in February 2006 when he was convicted in a New York court of defrauding over 60 investors of $90 million. Now, as he sits back in his cell in the Nassau County Correctional Centre, still following the financial markets from a transistor radio, still claiming he will return to trading, Derek Turner can at least lay claim to one title – he is undoubtedly the “King of Con” from down under.
Born and raised in Taranaki, Turner first got into trouble after moving from Auckland to Sydney, where in 2000 the Australian Securities and Investments Commission found him guilty of trading without a licence, shut down his operation and ordered him to repay his investors.
Instead, Turner took their money and set up home in the tax haven of the Bahamas where he started up a new hedge fund, Turning International, which collected millions from investors in New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, the UK and the US.
However, the good times would not last forever. Turner’s downfall eventually came from the most unlikely of people, an ex-con turned preacher by the name of Barry Minkow (played by Mark Fergusson).
The Million Dollar Con Man is interspersed with interviews from the people intimately involved in the case, from victims who lost millions, to FBI Agents, and even Turner’s un-doer, Minkow himself.
The Million Dollar Con Man is a truly remarkable story of one man’s determination to live a life beyond his means, filled with luxury and prestige. Derek Turner’s story is told on Thursday, June 5th at 8:30pm on 3.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Highly rewarding story – great to have some major players interviewed, with the real kick at the end: the real Derek Guise Turner footage, a man in full vanity/denial, a disturbing series of clips that support the excellent acting of Eric Thompson. He just needs a little hug from dad.
Saw half of this and would like to see the rest is there anyway I can download it?
Got to give it to Derek for this Con, simple yet genious.
where can this video by gotten? i cant seem to find it anywhere on the internet..thx
hi there well as some of you may already know their is a lot more to the story
derek had his plee bargin retracted after we all submitted evidence to the fbi regarding money he had not disclosed
great thanks to the fbi whom were great in helping us at least get him put away for 20 years
if he ever turns up in nz please feel free to punch him in the face from hte nz investors whom have silently lost millions many have also lost all of hteir retirement and some their homes as a consequence
I knew Derek and Man Lin (his wife) as personal friends. We were married in Bahmamas with them hosting the wedding.
Derek’s wife knew nothing of the scam and is a great ladie.
Derek was a good, fun, guy. He just has an illness.
I miss he and his wife.
N
I also would like to see the documentary. How can someone in Canada get to veiw this movie from New Zealand?
One more thing- how is someone with mental illness help others to understand how they tick while rotting away in jail. His brilliant albiet criminal mind should be studied and used as Minko’s was. Why can Minko walk and Derek rot?
I spent time with Mr. Turner while incarcerated at Terminal Island F.C.I. and he was quite an excellent fellow……….I know that he certainly helped me and many others during that period………….He is destined to regain his standing in the world of Financial Trading and the world at large……….You will see, and then perhaps a fitting follow-up docu-drama will be presented by TV3 !
I also knew Derek in The Bahamas and actually worked for him for a very short time during the WTC2002 campaign. The energy and charisma of the man was undeniable but there was also a definite negative feeling that surrounded him. I lasted less than a week with Turning International before quitting just to get the hell away.
Was wondering if the doco was on the net anywhere missed it
Derek is an arrogant con man that ripped people of millions that walked around like he was God’s gift, while he thought he was highly religious. walking around all smug and living the high life, professing to be some kind of genius at trading: he’s a thief!! living the highlife, buying up real estate, fancy cars, flying private jets, and you say his wife knew nothing of it? rubbish! she was right there with him lapping up the high life too and disappeared quickly, trying to hoard all their stuff into shipping containers the day it went down to get it out of the bahamas, meanwhile the authorities found out and stopped it. i knew him for the years that he was in the bahamas, and once people saw beyond his facade they distanced themselves from him. and while he professed to be smart he was rude, arrogant, smug and all along ripping people off and spending their hard earned money ON HIMSELF! lying bastard even got more years slapped on his original plee bargain for lying, 20 years, people get less than that for murder! what does that tell you, you know how many lives he disrupted?? and I wouldn’t be surprised at all surprised that he ripped people for way more money that what was originally ripped and further has it stashed off for further enjoyment!
well derek is apealing his sentence with a very expensive solicitor paid for i feel by funds his lovely wife provided the solicitor whilst in hong kong as it presume it is a offence to take cash in the states
unfortunitly i feel he may win his appeal as there is precedence
amny way he will be sent back to nz where there may be many people looking to get some just rewards
his wife definitly knew ABOUT his lies as she was th eperson sihning some of his returns and sat next to him whilst he speeled out his storey so good try man-lin
I encounterd this man as a resident of a building in Annandale, NSW, Australia. He was a bully who took us to court because he wanted to turn 2 penthouses into one giant unit in 2004/05 and we knew something smelt wrong. He was just about to get away with it when suddenly his lawyer stopped the action, citing a ‘change of circumstances’! It was only when we saw the story a few months later in the SMH paper that the reason was he was jailed in the US! He didn’t pass the sniff test from the outset (including threatening us if we took the matter to the papers) but rarely do people turn out to be as rotten as he is!