Australia- In the mid-to late 1990s, porn king Greg Lasrado was driving a $500,000 black Lamborghini Diablo and living in a slick home in Berry St, Paddington, after spending $7 million acquiring a penthouse and two exclusive units at the just-released Palazzo Versace on the Gold Coast.

He was buying race horses, sucking on exquisite Cuban cigars, drinking his favourite tipple Makers Mark bourbon punting well and living a lavish lifestyle.

Mr Lasrado had moved to Brisbane in 1988 from his home town of Moree in New South Wales and started a business building and selling computers from a workshop beneath his house before moving into the lucrative online pornography business.

He built up a web of more than 50 companies on and offshore, his principal company being GDL Investments, Net Billing and Insanemedia.

In the early days, he was also involved with Jonto and Naked.com but later, as he exited the porn industry, he ceased his shareholdings in both groups.

Brisbane was at the time the porn capital of Australia. At least six entrepreneurs who have since made considerable money from the exercise were “directing traffic” as they liked to call it switching people to porn sites for a fee and credit card debit and making a motza on the way through.

Things had never looked better. Former associates estimated Mr Lasrado was earning between $3 million and $10 million a year. “You would never know and there is no way of finding out,” one former colleague said. “But he enjoyed a pretty good life.”

He acquired considerable real estate assets, most reasonably leveraged, race horses and had an impressive share portfolio along with a list of offshore companies.

Adding glamour and romance to the tale, in 1999, he fell in love at the age of 29. He flew his sweetheart Melissa Croskery, then 21, from Brisbane to Paris and proposed over dinner and bought an impressive block of land at Kangaroo Point for $2.88 million or $2443 per square metre, a record at the time for a planned dream home.

Mr Lasrado wanted to turn the Leopard St land into a Tuscan-style mansion, spending up to $4 million and creating what he described as “a Brisbane landmark”, the fitout to be done by the Versace fashion house.

A euphoric Ms Croskery described the block as “the most beautiful piece of land I’ve ever seen”. “It’s just wonderful and I’m really excited about building our dream home,” she said. “I keep telling Greg I’m the luckiest woman in Brisbane.”

Mr Lasrado was also very generous at the time, donating to various charities and even handing the Queensland Labor Party $11,000 through his Insanemedia at a fundraising lunch for Terry Mackenroth in November 2000, at which he also acquired significant sporting memorabilia.

Cracks started to appear in the New Millennium, however. Initially there was a low “dispute rate” between customers using credit cards to access online pornography but over time things changed. Queries about excessive and regular charging increased the dispute rate and several of the banks involved started making it harder to process card payments.

A porn company without a bank to process its payments is a company with no cash flow.

The banks also increased their fees for dispute resolution, making the exercise expensive for companies involved, and the cash started to dry up.

“He thought at the time he was a $100 million man but in reality he was probably worth about $20 million,” one observer noted. A local broker doubted at his peak that Mr Lasrado was worth more than $15 million.

“He thought he would make a lot of money forever but that did not happen because profits for online adult entertainment went down because you could not get paid for it,” he said.

He split from Ms Croskery and later met and married local girl Sonia Stitchbury, the pair having a daughter. But the marriage lasted just three years.

He exited the not-so-profitable porn business, stressing at the time it was because “the stigma involved is pretty full on” but instead of curbing his spending and lifestyle he continued to acquire assets.

Cracks started to appear in his private life as well. Mr Lasrado, who suffers from bad migraines and has used pethidine to curb the pain, had an unfortunate run of luck as the business cascaded.

In December 2001, it was revealed that he kept an unlicensed semi-automatic handgun because he believed he was the subject of extortion. Mr Lasrado, then 31, was fined $1500 in the Brisbane Magistrate’s Court and ordered to forfeit the weapon.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Roy Mientjes told the court police had found the handgun after they answered a call from Mr Lasrado’s future wife. She said her fiance had taken medication and was threatening to kill himself.

Once inside the couple’s home, police found a black semi-automatic handgun, unloaded, on a glass coffee table, Sgt Mientjes said.

The spending continued. A great Christmas holiday was spent with his new wife driving a Lamborghini to Paris where they bedded down at the prestigious George V Hotel, a stone’s throw from the Champs Elysees.

In February 2002, he spent $6 million snapping up the pink Kratzman house at St Lucia and tried, unsuccessfully to sell the Kangaroo Point block for $4 million.

A split with Ms Stitchbury sent his personal finances into chaos, however, and by April 2004, on his own admission, his finances were a mess although he had sold some assets, most income producing, such as a commercial building at Milton.

At about the same time he was found by passers-by asleep outside the City Botanic Gardens in his Lamborghini with several hundred thousand dollars in the boot of the car.

Police attended, awoke him and discovered he had enjoyed a serious day at the casino the night before and was simply resting.

The Brisbane City Council twice sued him for unpaid rates more than $18,000 in 2003 and $23,000 in 2004. “I guess I’m a bit disorganised,” he said at the time.

He was investigated by police after a $7000 cheque to a Brisbane tree stumper, Steve Protheroe, bounced and investigations revealed a string of small claims against Mr Lasrado from horse trainers through to Euroglass, See Change Ventures, Calibro Consulting and others.

The nail in the coffin came when Mr Lasrado borrowed several million dollars from a local lending group called 3 Point Finance, run by a group of businessmen who charge heady interest rates for short-term loans.

After continual deferral, the group called in receiver John Park of KordaMentha and four of Mr Lasrado’s companies ? Cougar- Investments (Qld) Pty Ltd, Miajoy Pty Ltd, Gregbury Pty Ltd and GDL Investments (Qld) Pty Ltd (the initials of his father Gregory Dominic Lasrado) ? were placed in receivership. GDL, Miajoy and Gregbury were subsequently placed in liquidation, through liquidator Mark Pearce of Pearce and Heers.

The receiver has since sold the Kangaroo Point block of land for $3.71 million, compared with a valuation by Strophairs of $3.675 million.

The Kratzman house was sold a week ago for $7.31 million, compared with recent valuations of $6.75 million, although a curious fire in the house had threatened to jeopardise the sale. Mr Lasrado’s other sizeable asset held through Miajoy was a trading portfolio operated through stockbrokers Tricom, a leveraged account at one stage estimated to have been as high as $13 million.

The portfolio contained shares in Deep Blue Sea and Western Areas and the broking firm has been dealing with the receivers subsequently winding down the portfolio.

The tax office is also pursuing Mr Lasrado, having filed proceedings in the Queensland Supreme Court in May this year for the recovery of $331,472.75.

On June 28, Mr Lasrado filed a notice of intention to defend the ATO action, denying his company had been served with any estimates setting out liability.

Despite several calls to Mr Lasrado on his mobile and home phone, he did not return calls. One of his lawyers, Jim Conomos, said he could not comment on the tax matter. “It is before the courts and we have filed a defence so it will just run its natural course,” Mr Conomos said.

The problems continued in recent weeks when Mr Lasrado had an accident and the Lamborghini ended up in the repair shop.

At the same time, Mr Lasrado’s father, Gregory Dominic Lasrado, had his medical registration cancelled after claims he had sexually harassed his patients, defrauded Medicare, illegally prescribed drugs, altered patients’ records and performed unnecessary medical procedures.