Money scam ... Ahsan Ali Syed, left, and Keith Johnson.

Money scam ... Ahsan Ali Syed, left, and Keith Johnson.

AHSAN ALI SYED had all the trappings of wealth: the monogrammed private jet, a European football club, a retinue of minders and the obligatory bling - lots of it.

But now, thanks to some angry Australian victims, the net is closing on the man described as the Bernie Madoff of India.

Over the past year the Indian-born Mr Ali, 39, has scammed an estimated $100 million from Australian investors alone. With other victims in England, Ireland, Malaysia and, most recently Korea, authorities have no idea how big Mr Ali's fraud might be.

The scam is simple. Through his company, Western Gulf Advisory, which has offices in Bahrain and Switzerland, Mr Ali offers to lend troubled businesses up to $US200 million ($190 million) from his own personal fortune, which he claims to be $US8 billion.

This is itself incredible since only six years earlier Mr Ali departed London in a hurry leaving behind a grubby flat and owing thousands of pounds in unpaid rent and council taxes.

''There can be no doubt that WGA is a fraud,'' Andy Bryce, a solicitor from Melbourne law firm Evans Ellis, said.

Mr Bryce is acting for up to a dozen WGA victims who have been defrauded of $30 million by WGA. ''We are looking at our legal remedies both here and internationally,'' the solicitor, whose victims come from every state and were involved in a wide range of industries, said.

Last Friday Keith Johnson, one of NSW's biggest land developers, obtained a court order freezing WGA's bank accounts in Bahrain.

Mr Johnson was one of many who saw the ads WGA ran in the Australian business press. Favourable stories followed about a Newcastle company so happy with its first $US200 million loan, it said it was after a second.

The Herald has since revealed that no money was ever received and that one of the directors of that company was Sydney lawyer John Mulally, who happens to be WGA's lawyer in Australia.

Mr Johnson paid a $3.8 million establishment fee to secure a desperately needed $150 million loan, which never materialised. He is now struggling to refinance his development company which was hoping to develop 10,000 housing blocks around the central coast and Hunter area.

Mr Johnson's injunction preventing WGA from accessing its Bahraini bank accounts will not be good news to Spanish football officials. Earlier this year, Mr Ali was the white knight riding to the financial rescue of first division team Racing Santander.

But as of last week the club was in crisis. Not only had debts not been paid but its coach quit, taking a much-publicised swipe at Mr Ali on the way. Angry players, who are owed $2.3 million, are threatening to follow suit.