Source: The Sun-Herald
Five years ago Greg Lasrado drove a $500,000 black Lamborghini Diablo, rubbed shoulders with high-powered people such as US president Bill Clinton, lived between multimillion-dollar penthouses and bought racehorses for fun. Today his sole asset is a rusty ute, he lives in his parents' spare bedroom and spends most weekends helping his mum with the housework.
During the 1990s, Lasrado went from being a university student drop-out to Australia's No.1 internet porn tycoon, accumulating a $60million fortune along the way. But an extravagant lifestyle and poor business management sent him on a downward spiral to a broken marriage, heroin addiction and, finally, bankruptcy.
Today Lasrado, 38, reveals for the first time his dramatic rise and fall as an international porn baron.
"Up until five years ago, I was living every man's dream," he told The Sun-Herald in a Brisbane restaurant last week. "I'd wake up on a day like today, have lunch, buy a car, then head to the airport and be in another country by the close of play.
"I was convinced it would last forever. Now, I've lost the lot. If you were to turn me upside down, 10 cents would not fall out of my pocket."
The Australian Tax Office is hot on his tail, chasing $5million, but Lasrado says that is "the least of my worries". If found guilty of dangerous driving charges in September he could find himself in jail, with even more time on his hands to reflect on how it all went wrong.
Lasrado was born in Horsham, Victoria, in 1970 - a year after his parents migrated from India in search of a better life. He grew up in Moree, in country NSW, and has fond memories of his school holidays "driving tractors and working on the local farms".
In 1988, he moved to Brisbane and, wanting to make his "parents proud", enrolled at university, working in ice-cream parlours and pubs to make ends meet. After dropping out of university, he then started a business buying and selling computers from a basement beneath his house. Through "computer contacts" and "a random sequence of events", he suddenly found himself becoming a major player in the rapidly emerging world of online pornography.
The self-described "naive youngster" launched more than 200 individual adult websites, one by one. "It was a crazy time," he says. "I was still this country boy at heart, finding my feet in the world. I remember saying to my business partner at the time, if this makes us $100,000 for the year, we'll be laughing. We ended up making that in our first month."
Lasrado acknowledges there was "no secret" behind his success: "There were people worldwide who had never felt comfortable entering a newsagent's and buying an adult magazine. Then along came the internet and all of a sudden, in the privacy of their own home, they could access it all, including specific fetishes like bondage, big boobs or whatever."
By the mid-1990s, the online porn phenomenon was in full swing and more than 100,000 adults worldwide had subscribed to Lasrado's many sites. With the same number of monthly cash-debits pouring in off customer credit cards, he was suddenly a multimillionaire.
"It was a unique time," he says. "You have to remember, the internet was still in its infancy back then. While there was this huge growing demand for online porn, only a very small number of people were supplying it. We were all young, free and single. We socialised together and of course, we had pocketfuls of cash.
"We didn't give it a second thought at the time but we had just revolutionised the porn industry in a way nobody had ever done before."
With the world at his feet, Lasrado started to live the life of an international playboy. He hosted several weekend-long parties in Las Vegas for friends and web masters who had developed his many porn sites. "The bills for those parties often exceeded $100,000 which, at the time, seemed like nothing," he says.
In 1999 he fell in love - aged 29 - flying his girlfriend, Melissa Croskery, then 21, from Brisbane to Paris so he could propose to her over dinner. On their return he paid $2.88million for a riverfront block of land at Kangaroo Point, Brisbane, as an "engagement present". The engagement did not last.
Over the next few years, Lasrado ploughed his cash into stocks and property. His homes included a $7million Palazzo Versace penthouse on the Gold Coast and a landmark $6million pink house at St Lucia, Brisbane.
At its peak his property portfolio was worth $30million. While he also bought race horses "for the fun of it", his real passion was fast cars. "At various stages along the way, I owned four Lamborghinis and seven BMWs," he says. "Looking back now that was was a bit over the top, by anyone's standards."
If Lasrado was anything, he was generous. He donated thousands of dollars to charity. A Brisbane waiter told media that Lasrado not only tipped him a few hundred dollars but a brand new watch worth $15,000.
"I never worried about the money side of things," Lasrado says. "There was always this worldwide client base being billed and charged every month. The money just kept rolling in. Not once did I stop to think what might happen in the future."
In 2000, Lasrado met and married Brisbane girl Sonia Stitchbury. When the couple had a daughter, Isabella, it should have signalled the start of a new era. Instead, Lasrado's empire began to crumble.
"I placed my money and welfare in the hands of others," he says. "I'd never dealt with a bank in my life. I figured, if you pay top dollars for good advice, whether it be accountants, solicitors, financial advisers or stockbrokers, you'll always get treated correctly. Some guys did do the right thing, but with others, the greed factor took over. They bled me dry.
"One long-time friend, in particular, saw an opportunity at my expense and took it. Today, he's one of the biggest pornographers on the planet."
An associate at Lasrado's former stockbroking firm, Tricom, told The Sun-Herald : "He was a polite young bloke, very successful, always a pleasure to deal with. He made significant money in the stockmarket but then ran into trouble outside our firm. It caused a domino effect which is still causing him problems."
As Lasrado's business affairs imploded, so did his personal life. In 2001, his growing celebrity profile in Queensland led to an extortion attempt at the hands of a notorious criminal identity. "I was contacted by a supposed businessman about a money-making idea. When I turned up for the meeting, a shotgun was pointed at my head. They demanded money and said my family would be harmed if I went to police. But, to be honest, I didn't know what else to do."
Lasrado says that, within days, police mounted a major sting operation to catch the gang responsible. However, just as the trap was about to occur, Lasrado pulled the plug. "Under the circumstances, it seemed like the safest thing to do," he says. The Sun-Herald can reveal that researchers for Channel Nine's Underbelly contacted Lasrado, having established a link between him, the extortion attempt and one of the show's central characters. The Sun-Herald has agreed not to publish the man's name.
"I understand why people might want to go there but, seriously, what good would come from me dragging that up now?" he says.
In December the same year, Lasrado was fined $1500 in Brisbane's Magistrates Court after he was caught in possession of an unlicensed semi-automatic handgun, allegedly bought following the extortion attempt and a house break-in.
In 2003, Lasrado's three-year marriage collapsed - and his life began to "cave in". Having borrowed several million dollars from short-term financiers at heady rates, he began to gamble it all away. He lost $1million on the outcome of the 2003 Rugby World Cup final between Australia and England. In 2004, police were called to Brisbane's city botanic gardens after passers-by found Lasrado sleeping in the front seat of his Lamborghini, with the engine still running and several hundred thousand dollars on the passenger seat. "What can I say? I'd had a really big day at the casino," he says.
As receivers began selling Lasrado's dwindling assets, the mismanaged millionaire became hooked on heroin. "Because of the industry I was working in, people will automatically assume I was on drugs from day one. But the truth is, I never touched one single drug until I was in my 30s," he says.
"I had become depressed and was suffering from terrible migraines. I wanted to escape it all. I was able to afford heroin and so I tried it. Within a week, it had taken complete control over me."
By February 2006, Lasrado had reached rock bottom. He was arrested and charged with heroin possession after a police surveillance operation found he had regularly deposited $4500 into the bank account of an alleged drug dealer, who, in turn, would deliver heroin to his door. While Lasrado later walked free from court with no conviction recorded, the experience led him to "a crossroads".
"I needed a reason to beat heroin. That reason was my family," he says. "I figured that while I still had parents and a daughter who loved me, I had a future. It became my biggest-ever hurdle."
Today, Lasrado is back where it all began - living with mum and dad - who couldn't be happier. His mum, Roshan, says: "It's so lovely to have Greg home. He's surprisingly tidy and also a great cook.
"He's always taken life's ups and downs in his stride and we're proud of him for that."
While he is being pursued for unpaid taxes, it is a 2005 road accident which causes him to live in a "permanent state of limbo". In tendered court documents, Brisbane mother-of-three Vairari Inglis alleged she was a passenger in a car driven by her husband when Lasrado's Lamborghini clipped their car, "causing it to spin and flip on its roof".
Medical reports said Mrs Inglis suffered a "significant crush injury and loss of function in her fingers." A psychiatric report states: "She [Mrs Inglis] described being able to see a trail of hair and blood [as] she desperately attempted to pull herself inside the car."
Lasrado will stand trial in the Brisbane District Court on September 1, charged with dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing grievous bodily harm with circumstances of being adversely affected by an intoxicating substance. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.
"It was an accident, a terrible accident. I'm so sorry that poor woman was injured," he says.
Other than that, he says, "I have not one single regret. I lived 10 years at the top and not many people can say that. I purchased the most luxurious houses, drove the best cars.
"I know there are rumours about hidden money. I only wish they were true."
So what really goes through the mind of a man who lost $60million and now lives at home with his parents? "Look, it took losing everything for me to sit down and realise there are far more important things in life," he says.
"It's the simplest things which these days give me more pleasure than money ever did. I'm such a lucky bloke. My mum and dad remain my biggest fans. I made my money legitimately, I never once intentionally set out to hurt anybody and they know that.
"I still enjoy a great relationship with my ex-wife and, thanks to that, I get to tuck my daughter into bed most nights and kiss her goodnight. The feeling I get at that precise moment tops everything I've ever personally experienced. My heart melts every time."
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