Rich mates, secret mansions: Australia’s millionaire Nazi-backers revealed

Wealthy backers are helping Australia’s neo-Nazis plot their next move into politics from a secret multimillion-dollar compound. We tracked it down - along with Thomas Sewell’s rich mates.

You can’t see the mansion – or its pool – from the road. But locals in this leafy corner of Melbourne’s north-east have seen the man who lives here in town.

Some will yell at him; a few want to shake his hand. The face of the bald, mustachioed leader of Australia’s largest neo-Nazi group is known not just here but around the world, after all.

What locals don’t know is that, since being released on bail last year on assault charges, neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell has been secretly living among them at this sprawling $2.5 million estate.

Sewell’s name doesn’t appear on the official paperwork – it was bought using a shell company by the heir of a Melbourne trucking empire.

It’s just one in a web of assets this masthead has discovered held by rich associates and less prominent members of Sewell’s now-outlawed neo-Nazi group the National Socialist Network (NSN).

For the first time, an investigation by this masthead can unmask the wealthy backers behind Australia’s neo-Nazis as they mount a costly High Court challenge to new hate speech laws – and plot their next move into politics.

Among Sewell’s rich associates are a race-car driver turned failed political candidate who owns a fleet of planes; the son of a gun dealer and inventor in regional Victoria; a jet-setting “manfluencer” friend of Andrew Tate who sells penis supplements to teenagers; a property development heir turned provocateur, and a stockbroker mixing with MAGA influencers overseas.

Sewell has recently bragged to followers on livestreams of his plans to build a function centre on the property he said “an investor” had “gifted” his group last year – which this masthead has now tracked down through open-source intelligence and property records.

International extremism expert Matt Kriner, who recently assessed the NSN for the Albanese government, says the assets and connections uncovered by this masthead suggest Australia’s neo-Nazis have entered a dangerous new phase. “Historically, when fascist movements start to sequester themselves in compounds, particularly those that have already shown a fascination with violence, terrorists and weapons like the NSN, that makes them very dangerous,” Kriner said.

He and other far-right researchers say authorities should now target the group the same way they had organised crime syndicates: “By following the money.”

Sewell’s new home – described by one gushing realtor as a