Michael Cranston

Michael Cranston was an Australian civil servant who was a deputy commissioner of the Australian Taxation Office. During 2015 Mr Cranston led a major operation which led to 100 tax officers raiding the Sydney premises of 12 firms, including lawyers, accountants and liquidators. The 12 firms were suspected of involvement in phoenix operations, whereby companies run up tax liabilities, fail to pay the tax liabilities, and money or assets disappear or are stripped from the companies before the companies are deliberately bankrupted by the proprietors. The same proprietors then establish new but similar companies, and the whole process is repeated, systematically. The bankrupted companies are liquidated, with the intention of leaving creditors and the tax office empty-handed or short-changed.

Ironically, in 2017, it emerged that Mr Cranston was the progenitor of two offspring, a son Adam and a daughter Lauren, who are alleged to be central characters in Australia's alleged largest tax fraud involving phoenixing. The alleged estimated amount of money involved in the fraud, according to the investigating authorities, has been reported in the media at figures ranging from $130 million to $160 million.

Parts of the evidence were gathered using phone taps of conversations between the various suspects and phone conversations between two members of the Cranston family.

Later in 2017, Mr. Cranston resigned from the ATO after he was formally charged with abusing his position as a public servant.

There are no allegations that Mr Cranston had prior knowledge of, or culpability in respect of, the alleged illegal activities of one or two of his children.