To the casual observer, the LWP Capital website looks like any other blue-chip financial services and asset management firm, complete with a premier corporate address, a team of 40-plus experts and a recognisable family name behind its more than $2 billion in assets.

There is even a financial services licence cited on the website, registered with the Australian corporate regulator, and held by 21-year-old Edward Feng Zhao Lee, the younger brother of Labor Party donor and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s recent Point Piper dinner party host Felix Ming Ze Lee.

But apart from the licence number, the address and the identity of Lee jnr, nothing else about the elaborate LWP Capital website is true, and Lee, son of billionaire accused tax cheat Phillip Dong Fang Lee, claims he didn’t even know of its existence until this masthead raised inquiries about its legitimacy.

“The website alerted to us by The Sydney Morning Herald (and The Age) is not owned, operated, authorised or in any way connected to LWP Capital or the Lee Family Office,” a spokesman for the Lee Family Office said.

“It fraudulently reproduces our business name and address without authority or consent and illegally represents itself to the public as being our firm. We do not know who created the website or who stands behind it.”

The phony website and its AI-generated images, expert staff profiles and suite of professional financial services come to light at a fraught time for the Lee family, headlined most recently by allegations by the tax office that the family patriarch used “sham” financial arrangements to move vast sums of money from China to Australia to fund his Australian business, property and gambling activities.

Further, the Australian Tax Office alleges the reclusive Phillip Lee still has business and financial interests in China, despite his previous vows to Australian authorities that he had sold off his Chinese business assets.

The extraordinary allegations by a top-ranking tax official were detailed in a damning affidavit lodged in the Federal Court during a $280 million tax dispute, which this masthead fought for months to access.

The Federal Court dispute has since been settled, and freeze orders over Lee snr’s assets have been discharged, but his and his wife Xiaobei Shi’s property empire remains under the control of the Commonwealth government given the debt is yet to be paid in full.

Phillip Lee’s other son Felix Lee has been at pains to distance himself from his father’s financial affairs, establishing the Lee Family Office as a wholly independent outfit and appointing former federal treasurer Joe Hockey as chairman.

More recently, Felix has been the subject of headlines after The Australian Financial Review revealed he had hosted an unofficial Labor Party fundraiser at his parents’ Point Piper mansion, Mandalay, for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

The private dinner for 10 included a handful of business and political leaders, among them former Victorian premier Dan Andrews, CBA chief Matt Comyn, former CBA boss David Murray, ex-ASIC chairman James Shipton and former HSBC chief Antony Shaw.

The event is expected to swell ALP coffers by less than $100,000.

It was the headquarters address of the Lee Family Office headquarters that was hijacked as the registered corporate address on the phony LWP Capital website.

And while the financial services licence held by LWP Capital exists, a spokesperson for the Lee family said it is for a business that has not yet been launched. “We have reported this matter to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Scamwatch, the Australian Signals Directorate, the Australian Cyber Security Centre and NSW Police.”

The bogus LWP Capital site, registered in February under the name of Edward Lee and using a fake Edward Lee email address, offers a case study in how artificial intelligence is fuelling online frauds.

Calls to the phone number listed online went to a LWP Capital message service, and there was no response from the site’s email address. On Tuesday, the website disappeared.

It remains unknown if the scam was financially motivated and how it worked.

Among the pages of mistruths about the fake LWP Capital’s asset management, financial planning, fixed income bonds, pre-IPO investments and private equity services are claims of a team of more than 40 experts and more than $2 billion under its control – “all while upholding the highest standards of professionalism and ethical conduct”.

There are also profiles of some of those industry experts. Chief among them is leading fixed income adviser John Baxter, whose “distinguished career” in the financial services sector goes back to 2001 when he started at the fictional Thames Sovereign Bank, before the fake Baxter was headhunted in 2016 from “leading Australian investment firm Pacific Bond Capital”, which also does not exist.

Another member of LWP’s imaginary fixed income team is Lucy Davis, who “honed her analytical skills” at non-existent English companies Sterling & Bourne Merchant Bank and Thames- Southampton Holdings before she too was headhunted by “LWK Capital” in 2021. She also dabbles as a part-time journalist for AI-generated, pseudo-news sites like the Australian Financial Gazette, Blue Chip Observer and Australian Business News Online.

The staff images are AI-generated, and the website is updated regularly from legitimate news sources featuring the bylines of well-known Australian journalists.

What is real, however, is the Lee family’s ambition to launch a genuine financial services business in Australia in the near term.

Edward Lee purchased his Australian Financial Services Licence via the secondary market in December last year, with due diligence in that process by the accounting firm EY.

In February, big brother Felix acquired an Australian Credit Licence, also in the secondary market, with both licences now featured prominently on the Lee Family Office website.

A source close to the family, but not authorised to speak publicly, said work was now under way formulating the brothers’ business plan to leverage the licences, likely now under a new name given the apparent fraud perpetrated under their LWP Capital banner.

As for Hockey, he’s not on the hook for any official director duties, just listed on the family office home page in the titular role as chairman. The family source confirmed to this masthead that Hockey is actually chair of a yet-to-be-populated “advisory board” and that the former treasurer has been mentoring and advising Felix Lee.

The source further revealed that the family and Hockey are now in discussions with potential recruits to the advisory board, with talks having already taken place with former ASIC chair Shipton and ex-HSBC boss Shaw.