Warren Borsje was raised by his parents, John and Chichi Borsje, as a Jehovah’s Witness in Perth Western Australia. He moved to Sydney in his early 20’s and then to St Kilda Melbourne somewhere around 1992.

I knew Warren very well and ran into him several times when he lived in St. Kilda. His small apartment was usually the meeting place before we hit the clubs or the goto place for the occasional wild party. He had a large backlit aluminium letter “e” mounted on his wall which should give you some idea of how hard Warren liked to party, party, party.

Warren was working in the security industry at the time selling security alarm systems for FAI Home Security, and was good buddies with Brad Cooper. Brad was a con artist who in 2006 was sentenced to five years jail for bribery.

Warren was a baptized member of the Watchtower religion and regularly attended the Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall on Carlisle Street in St Kilda, Melbourne. He deliberately kept this part of his life hidden from the world.

One of Warren’s businesses, New World Education, was aptly named because the Jehovah’s Witness bible is called the New World Translation. The term New World is important to JWs because they believe that a “new world order” is coming where all non-JWs will be destroyed forever by Jehovah God and then a paradise earth will replace this “wicked system”. So, the company name New World Education was Warren’s little joke, as he didn’t really believe in the religion. He thought it was mostly bunk but played the game, so to speak, to prevent from being shunned by the Jehovah’s Witness community.

In around 1994 Warren married a girl named Mandy and they held their reception in Warren’s parent’s (John and Chichi) backyard. It was a very low key, very low budget affair without frills.

Warren left FAI Home Security and setup his own business called Assured Protection which didn’t work out. Soon after Warren and Mandy moved to the UK which is were he dreamt up the idea of selling “get rich property courses”. Through mutual friends, I learned that Warren didn’t actually own the property investments as claimed in his marketing. His multi-million dollar investment business was a ruse, rather than a reality.

Sadly, after several failed business ventures, Warren ended up penniless. His wife had left him during the process. Over time I lost direct contact with Warren, but through friends learned he would turn to the bottle for solace.

At the end of his tether, in 2015 Warren took a trip to Bali, alone. Soon after his arrival he was found dead in his hotel room at the $20-a-night Fave Hotel in Seminyak.

I must say I was very sorry to hear of this passing, mostly for his parents – and it was such a waste. Warren was a live wire and really knew how to lighten the room and inject energy into those around him. Personally, I think he suffered from a form of depression where he experienced extreme highs and lows. Oftentimes you wouldn’t hear from Warren for days at a time, and then all of sudden he would popup bigger than life, as though nothing had changed.

I guess the main lesson from this story for newbie investors is that you should really research an individual’s background before investing in their methodology. As much as Warren had a lot of natural talents and skills, making millions from property investment certainty wasn’t one of them.