The smoke-alarm licence scam that a magistrate called a deliberate rort

Court records from Queensland show that Adrian James Campbell’s 2018 Eco Boss Pty Ltd case was not treated by the sentencing court as a technical breach or a bookkeeping error. It was described as something far more serious: a deliberate consumer scam built around false representations, cancelled promises and money taken from buyers who received little or nothing in return.

That case matters because it sits at the centre of Campbell’s broader record. In 2018, he pleaded guilty to 11 charges of false and misleading conduct under the Australian Consumer Law. He was fined $85,000 personally and ordered to pay $102,200 in compensation to victims. The magistrate’s language was unusually sharp. The conduct was described as “calculated” and “deliberate”, and the scheme was called plainly “a scam”.

What the court found

Public records show Eco Boss Pty Ltd operated as a Gold Coast construction and consumer services business. The offending concerned the sale of smoke-alarm distribution licences, with customers paying for rights Campbell knew he did not have to sell. According to the facts later repeated in media reporting, the scheme took about $204,400 from buyers.

“Calculated”, “deliberate” and “a scam” were the words the sentencing magistrate used to describe the conduct.

That matters because Australian courts usually reserve such language for cases where dishonesty is not incidental but central to the enterprise. In Campbell’s matter, the sentencing record indicates the court accepted that the deception was not an accident. It was part of the way the business was run.

The 2018 case was not Campbell’s only consumer or fraud problem. Court records and publicly available judgments also record 2012 fraud convictions in Queensland, and five further convictions recorded in 2015 at Southport Magistrates Court in relation to International Solar Solutions. Those charges concerned accepting payment and failing to supply goods or services. Together, the matters form a pattern that later became highly relevant in Federal Court proceedings.

Why the record became critical in 2026

In Campbell v McIntyre (No 2) [2026] FCA 1279, Justice Derrington found Campbell had sworn a Federal Court affidavit stating he had never been convicted of any criminal offence in Australia. That was false. The court later described the non-disclosures as “exceptionally serious” and discharged the injunctions Campbell had obtained.

The consequences were severe. Campbell was ordered to pay 80 per cent of legal costs on an indemnity basis, the harshest costs sanction available in Australian courts. He later filed a corrected affidavit admitting the prior convictions.

That Federal Court finding did not determine the separate merits of Campbell’s own defamation and consumer law claims, which remain on foot. But it did expose how the 2018 Eco Boss matter, and the earlier convictions, were not peripheral background. They went directly to credibility.

A continuing public record

Campbell has said his convictions are a matter of public record, that he never sought to hide them, and that his first affidavit was incomplete rather than intentionally false. He has said the error was corrected, he regrets it and respects the court’s finding.

He has also maintained that Kinnara acted only as a sales and marketing agent for the Marina Bay City project, did not hold purchaser funds, lodged its own report with Indonesian police in November 2025 and is co-operating with authorities.

Whatever view is taken of those explanations, the court records remain stark. The 2018 smoke-alarm licence matter was not simply a business failure. A magistrate found it was a deliberate scam, and that language now sits at the centre of wider scrutiny of Campbell’s offshore corporate activities and investor-facing claims.

For Australian regulators and investors alike, the lesson from the record is simple: in Campbell’s case, the warning signs were not hidden. They were written into the judgments.