He dined and dashed in Hong Kong. Now a $300,000 inheritance is missing

AdvertisementSaveYou have reached your maximum number of saved items.Remove items from your saved list to add more.ShareAAABeijing: On March 23, Australian lawyer Samuel Monkivitch sat down at a Chinese restaurant in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay and tucked into a feast of soya sauce prawns, a whole fish, white rice and a beer.

Then he got up and left, walking out on a bill of $HK639.10 ($117).That might have been the end of it had a bystander not chased Monkivitch down the street, yelling “this foreigner doesn’t pay for his meal” and filming him as he stormed away.

Australian lawyer Samuel Monkivitch has become infamous on Hong Kong social media.Michael Howard“Mate, do you want your head smashed in?” Monkivitch threatened , his baseball cap slung backwards on his head, as he stepped towards the man before slapping his hand and striding off.

The video would take off on Hong Kong social media, captioned with the warning: “Wanted! Dine and dasher. Attack me when he escape [sic].

Shameless.”It marked the beginning of Monkivitch’s downfall – he was briefly jailed and fined for a dine-and-dash spree across Hong Kong targeting five restaurants and a massage parlour.AdvertisementHong Kongers posted footage in online forums of him arguing with staff in the street about payment, and of citizens’ arrests.

It was met with a mix of scorn and mockery as people mused about why a lawyer couldn’t afford to pay for a succulent Chinese meal.But unpaid restaurant bills were a mere side story to far more serious allegations of manipulation and misappropriation that were unfolding back in Monkivitch’s home town of Melbourne.In the working-class suburb of Sunshine, 21-year-old Charlie Nemet had entrusted Monkivitch to manage her late father George’s estate – an inheritance of $372,507.

37.LoadingHis superannuation from years of hard work as a bricklayer was supposed to set up Charlie and her teenage sister, Ruby, for a life without their parents, who had died within months of each other a few years earlier.But the bank account Monkivitch had advised her to put the money in – and which he had joint access to – now had just 20¢ in it.

He had transferred about $300,000 over 149 transactions into his personal bank account between February 2025 and February 2026, while claiming he was using the funds to pay legal fees and for unsubstantiated investments.Advertisement“The money that my dad worked so hard for in his life is probably all gone. He’s taken it,” Charlie alleges from her home, after spending weeks gathering evidence to report to the police.

She reached this conclusion after watching the video of Monkivitch fleeing the Pak Loh Chiu Chow Restaurant that day in March.By then, Monkivitch had been difficult to contact for weeks. She wanted him to release some of their inheritance so Ruby could buy a car.

When she heard from a friend he was in jail in Hong Kong, she Googled him and discovered a Reddit thread documenting his dine-and-dash spree.Charlie, right, and Ruby Nemet trusted Samuel Monkivitch with their inheritance.Ruby Alexander“I was processing everything.

Everything he had told me. That he was going to help me. I was just like, ‘Holy shit; I’ve been played’,” she says.

Asked directly by this masthead whether he conned Charlie and Ruby Nemet out of their inheritance, Monkivitch said: “The simple answer is, of course not.“There’s some very, very distorted truth,” he said, stating he was the target of a character assassination.AdvertisementPressed about the money’s whereabouts and for proof that it had been invested, he said the situation was a “personal legal matter”.

“There’s no version of events to provide you. I have a confidential position,” he said before hanging up. He declined to respond to further questions in writing.

This masthead has combed through bank statements, trust documents and invoices, as well as emails and messages between the Nemets and Monkivitch.The evidence trail gives rise to serious allegations– painting a picture of an egregious abuse of the lawyer-client relationship and basic fiduciary duties – including extensive billing without proper invoicing, improper invoicing when billing did occur, disastrous and conflicted legal advice, unsubstantiated investments, and the apparent commingling of trust money with personal finances.In gaining access to the Nemet sisters’ money, Monkivitch could exert control over their financial independence, a dynamic made more inappropriate by the fact he was a 50-year-old man purporting to help young, vulnerable women.

Last month, fresh out of jail in Hong Kong, Monkivitch sent the sisters a written report containing allegedly misleading and unsubstantiated claims about where their money had gone.AdvertisementAs Charlie has attempted to chase her money by contacting the firms Monkivitch claims to have paid using inheritance funds, he has grown increasingly aggressive in response.“Do NOT interact with any of the firms or institutions that I mentioned in my correspondence to you