Australia’s most infamous conman Peter Foster was taken down by undercover cops

In 2002, Cherie Blair – the wife of then-British PM Tony Blair – came under unwanted scrutiny after buying two cut-price flats with the help of Peter Foster. 

Foster – who was already a convicted conman – was dating Mrs Blair’s confidante and ‘fitness guru’ Carole Caplin at the time and went with his girlfriend to help Mrs Blair buy the two flats in Bristol. 

He was said to have boasted that he used the Blair name to secure a £69,000 discount, but later backtracked and said it was merely the ‘art of negotiation’.  

Mrs Blair said she had wanted to buy the flats after their son Euan started at university in the city.  

The Blairs in 1997, the year that Tony Blair came to power after a landslide general election victory 

Downing Street initially denied that Foster was involved, but was caught out when the Daily Mail published emails between Mrs Blair and the Australian conman in which Cherie described Foster as a ‘star’. 

The PM’s wife was forced into a public apology, saying she did not know Foster had been in prison and that Caplin had assured her he was a ‘reformed character’. 

Acknowledging that Foster had been involved in the deal, Mrs Blair said the Australian ‘started to offer what seemed like helpful advice, which at the time I saw no reason to reject’. 

Describing the initial denial as a ‘misunderstanding’, Mrs Blair said she had acted out of a mother’s instinct’ to protect her family’s privacy.   

Foster also claimed he had sought advice from Mrs Blair, a barrister, about separate deportation proceedings against him. 

But Mrs Blair insisted that she ’emphatically did not try to influence this one way or another’ and Foster’s own solicitors said she had not given any advice or assistance. 

Early Years

As a teenager in the late 1970s, Foster began promoting nightclubs and boxing matches on the Gold Coast. But he was declared bankrupt in the early 80s after trying to sell tickets for a Muhammad Ali fight in Australia that never came off. He was also fined $A100,000 in Britain for trying to claim insurance for a cancelled fight.

Slimming Teas

Undeterred, Foster hooked up with a number of high-profile British girlfriends who he used to promote his ‘slimming’ Bai Lin Tea. He fled Britain and fraudulently re-marketed the product as Chow Low Tea in the US where he was caught and forced to serve four months in jail. He was also jailed in the UK when he returned in 1995.

Cherie-Gate

Foster sparked two weeks of turmoil for British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2002 when he became a financial adviser to Blair’s wife Cherie. He and girlfriend Carole Caplin, a confidante to Mrs Blair, helped as ‘middle men’ in the purchase of two flats in Bristol.

Fijian Follies

Chased by local police in 2006 for forging documents about his criminal history, Foster strips down to his underpants and dives from a bridge into a river but hits his head on a boat and is captured. He then goes on a hunger strike, preventing hospital staff from handing him over to police because he’s too weak. While on bail, escapes to Vanuatu on a boat.

Slim Pickings

Foster is declared bankrupt by the Federal Court in January 2018 after refusing to pay court costs relating to SensaSlim, a scam weight loss company. He was jailed in 2014 for contempt of court over SensaSlim, before which he had spent around a year in hiding in a bush property near Byron Bay..

Sports Rorts

Foster arrives six hours late to his sentencing at a Sydney court in October 2018 after being sentenced for possessing a fake Irish passport in order to get an offshore betting license for a sports trading company. His lawyer told the court his client’s delay was down to food poisoning.