Retiree speaks out after being ripped off by convicted fraudster Darren Rudkin

There are calls for a New Zealand-born criminal who’s been conning Australians for the past 13 years to be deported after his latest rort was exposed.

Darren Wayne Rudkin is a convicted fraudster. He has now been caught out charging for his financial services, leaving one unlucky man’s life in tatters.

Paul Garratt said Rudkin “tricked me” after coming into his life as a supposed “finance guru”.

“He tried to con me into being his mate and he said, ‘Look, even if you weren’t paying me, mate, I’ve got your back. Don’t worry, I’ll look after you’. And I sort of believed it at first,” the 70-year-old said.

“I thought he was a qualified financial advisor and that he would achieve the goal that I wanted him to.”

Garratt had no idea that Rudkin had been sentenced to three years’ jail in 2020 at the Brisbane District Court after being caught defrauding one business and five individuals of $157,000 via a used car dealership. 

The judge found that Rudkin had lied to police on multiple occasions and continued offending whilst on bail. When remanded in custody, he collapsed in the courtroom, apparently having a seizure.

Paul Garratt’s life story is the polar opposite. He has relied on hard work to build up a tidy nest egg as he nears retirement.

A $3 million home on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast was his jewel in the crown, but he needed help rearranging finance for it.

“He (Rudkin) said he could renegotiate finance and recover the costs that I’d already outlaid to purchase the property, which seemed to be exorbitant to me,” Garratt said. 

“Darren came up with the deal, and he said he would require $3500 paid into his bank account every week that he worked as a financial consultant for me and renegotiated the loan.” 

As if that wasn’t a sweet enough deal, Rudkin said he would also rent out the stunning property overlooking the Noosa River with his partner Farrah De Gelder and her three children.

The agreed rent was $1200 per week for the fully furnished property which was “salary sacrificed” from the $3500 he was being paid.

Garratt expected Rudkin would refinance his loan and sort out an insurance claim too but after almost six months of living there, Rudkin had failed on both objectives. 

Garratt decided it was time to stop paying the consultancy fees to Rudkin, who in turn stopped paying rent and then refused to leave.

Garratt spent more than four months getting a Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal order to have him evicted.

Police officers attended the property to enforce the warrant of possession in September 2024.

Rudkin and De Gelder had departed but so had all of Garratt’s furniture. 

Garratt said he “almost passed out from the shock” when he walked into the home and found it empty.

“I was so excited to get my house back and all the beautiful contents and there were no contents left. So I was staggered,” he said. 

Police executed a search warrant at a rental property Rudkin moved to and found half of the missing furniture.

Detectives charged Rudkin and De Gelder each with one count of aggravated stealing leading to a series of bizarre court appearances at Noosa Magistrates Court last year.

At one appearance, De Gelder winked at me inside the courtroom.

Rudkin hurled abuse in the foyer calling me a “maggot” before asking the magistrate for a suppression order on his case, which was rejected.

The pair pleaded not guilty, claiming the furniture was gifted to them, which Garratt strenuously denies.

After a committal hearing last September, a magistrate ordered them to stand trial at Maroochydore District Court.

But the case never made it to trial; earlier this year the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) decided to drop the matter, failing to provide a written response explaining why to the alleged victim Garratt, who also has a civil claim pending against the couple.

A spokesperson for the DPP said communication with victims remains “a key priority” and the Crown Prosecutor “informed the victim about the decision to discontinue charges earlier this year”.

“However, we regret the complainant did not receive a written response as intended due to an administrative oversight, which we will be correcting,” the spokesperson said.

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De Gelder has now been cleared of her criminal charge and unlike Rudkin, does not have any previous criminal history.

In addition to Rudkin’s fraud conviction in 2020, he was also exposed on A Current Affair in 2013 after he had appeared as a good Samaritan tradie helping a blind man who’d been ripped off.

“Our name gets tarnished badly by these rat bags in the industry,” Rudkin said in the original A Current Affair segment, only to use that appearance as a springboard to rip off customers across Sydney.

When confronted on camera with questions about his conduct, Rudkin did a runner through the streets of Sydney despite claiming he’d suffered a “mini stroke” a few weeks earlier.

In 2015, NSW Fair Trading successfully prosecuted Rudkin over the matter in Parramatta Local Court where he was convicted of multiple offences, fined and placed on a two-year good behaviour bond and ordered to pay back $60,000 to his 11 victims.

In 2020, he was sentenced to three years’ jail, to be released on parole after serving 10 months for his fraud conviction whilst working as a used car dealer

As a New Zealand-born citizen, Rudkin could’ve been deported after this jail sentence ended but was saved from that extra punishment.

Garratt believes Rudkin is a “serial offender” who should not be allowed to remain in Australia.

“He just keeps doing it, and he feels like he’s in the right doing it. It’s like his life,” Garratt said.

“We don’t want him here, not in Australia. He’s done so much damage to so many people in this country. It’s just horribly wrong, and he seems like he’s protected from it.”