Two Gold Coast businessmen accused of hiding millions of dollars from the tax office discussed using "spin" to paint themselves as victims, a court has been told.
During a police-intercepted phone call in June 2005, Adam John Hargraves, 37, and Daniel Aran Stoten, 37, talked about media coverage of a major police and Australian Crime Commission investigation into offshore tax evasion, the Supreme Court in Brisbane was told on Thursday.
During the call, which was played to the court on the third day of their trial, the pair is heard discussing a recent newspaper article about Jersey-based accountant Philip Egglishaw, who headed a firm specialising in offshore structures.
It's alleged Hargraves, his brother Glenn Luke Hargraves, 39, and Stoten used the firm to set up offshore accounts which they used to hide more than $3 million in taxable income from the Australian government.
They allegedly then repatriated the cash by using credit and debit cards at Australian ATMs.
During the call Stoten tells Hargraves the media has been referring to Egglishaw as the "Mr Big" of the alleged offshore scam, and that he had received advice they could use this to their own advantage.
"It'd be very easy to, on the basis of the way this guy's being portrayed in the media, that very much we would be seen as ... it would be easy to spin as victims," he said.
The two men are heard lamenting the fact they were being investigated over their alleged tax evasion, and being upset they were going to now be "stung twice" on money they had kept overseas.
Stoten also stated a number of times that their priority was to lessen their criminality so they could "get on with running the business".
Each has pleaded not guilty to conspiring to defraud the commonwealth between June 1999 and June 2005.
The trial continues before Justice George Fryberg.
