Adam Cranston, the son of former ATO deputy commissioner Michael Cranston, has been found guilty by a NSW Supreme Court jury over his role in a $105 million tax-fraud scheme.
Adam Cranston was among five people who all pleaded not guilty to their alleged involvement in the scam, including his sister, Lauren Cranston.
After close to two months of jury deliberations, guilty verdicts were on Tuesday handed to Adam Cranston, and two co-accused, Dev Menon and Jason Onley.
They were found guilty of conspiring with another person to dishonestly cause a loss to the Commonwealth, and conspiring with another person to deal with money more than $1 million, believing it to be proceeds of crime.
The jury continues to deliberate for two other co-accused, including Ms Cranston.
There is no suggestion Michael Cranston was involved in any wrongdoing.
The long-running trial heard allegations of a scam which ran for about four years, involving the accused parties ripping off the government by keeping more than $100 million in GST and Pay As You Go (PAYG) tax that was meant for the ATO.
It was alleged a legitimate payroll company, Plutus Payroll, was used to collect gross wages from employers before money owed to the ATO was siphoned off into "second tier" or "bottom" companies with dummy directors.
The jury was told many of the "straw" directors were drug addicts who would accept money to open up bank accounts in their names, without knowing they were involved in alleged tax fraud.
During the early stages of the trial last April, jurors were played a series of secretly recorded phone calls.
In a call from 2017, Adam Cranston said to Mr Menon if the activity was "fully uncovered" it would be "f***ing Ben Hur".
In another recording of a conversation inside a meeting room, Onley, Menon and Cranston spoke about covert ways to communicate with each other that would not be picked up by the ATO.
Onley could be heard lambasting Menon for texting him that the ATO had removed a garnishee — a legal order that seizes and freezes money.
He told Menon: "Don't text me, ever."
The alleged multi-million-dollar scam was uncovered by the Australian Federal Police with assistance from the ATO in 2017 as part of Operation Elbrus.
