Update: 10:16AM CONMAN Peter Foster is back in custody after a year on the run and faces the prospect of another stint behind bars.
THE man linked to past weight loss scams and for embroiling former British prime minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie in a UK real estate scandal has been arrested in northern NSW.
He’ll be charged with assaulting police and resisting arrest and front Tweed Heads Local Court on Wednesday.
He’ll also have to face the music at some point over a three-year jail term he was handed, in his absence, for ignoring a 2005 ban on participating in the weight-loss industry.
The cameras were rolling when detectives pounced on the barefoot portly 52-year-old after he tried but failed to outrun police at Ewingsdale, near Byron Bay, on Tuesday afternoon.
He ended up sprawled on the ground in the bushes, with officers apparently concerned he may have tried to reach for a gun.
“Let go of the gun!,” police can be heard saying as they handcuffed Foster.
Nine Network’s A Current Affair program is claiming credit for the arrest, saying they led police to Foster after tailing him for months and secretly filming him living in a house in northern NSW.
Foster complained of health issues while being arrested, prompting a hospital visit.
He’s since been released and is being held at the Tweed Heads police station.
Foster had been hiding since he failed to appear at a Federal Court hearing in Brisbane in December last year.
He had commenced an appeal against a three-year prison term imposed in his absence in October 2013 for his part in the sale of the bogus SensaSlim oral weight loss spray.
It’s alleged Foster swindled about $6 million from 90 investors using the fake diet spray between December 2009 and September 2010.
The court rejected the appeal in March this year, as Foster refused to hand himself into authorities and claimed to be living in Fiji.
Foster has previously served jail terms in the UK, US and Australia, mainly for fraud.
Queensland Deputy Police Commissioner Ross Barnett said Foster would likely be returned to Brisbane, where he was sentenced in October 2013 to three years” jail for flouting the ban on him working in the weight loss industry.
“The matter is being initially handled by the NSW police and he’ll make his initial court appearance down there,” he told the Seven Network.
“If extradition proceedings are required we’ll send officers down to NSW to undertake that process.”