Henry Kaye became Australia's most notorious property spruiker during the long real estate boom of the late 1990s to early 2000s.

His promise of riches was bold. Kaye told thousands of often low-income Australians they could become millionaires as property speculators via an investment strategy that involved no deposits, no equity and no  debt. And he assured them they would not lose money if the market fell. Alchemy?  Not quite.

In some cases attendees at Kaye seminars were charged up to $55,000 to attend the get-rich-quick sessions, despite Kaye and his associates not having a financial service licence.

By the early 2000s, while still in his early 30s, Kaye had generated tens of millions of dollars.

It was a meteoric rise for the young man, who arrived in Australia as a boy from Belarus and who, as a teenager, sold moccasins from a stall at Victoria Market.

Those who witnessed him at work described him as a beguiling and highly skilled salesman, with one noting he could "sell sand to the Arabs".

In a rare interview in 2003, with The Age's James Button, Kaye was described as intense and charming with "icy green eyes". Kaye said he was "not Mother Teresa" but said the hostility towards him was because people were jealous of him.

"I have come on to the market from nowhere in 3½ years. I have got so many that are super jealous of my success ... Why is it so hard to believe that you can make money and still be a good human being?"

Kaye said he was offering a way out for people to "revolutionise" their lives. "If that's all we believe in, if we all think the best we can do is to suffer and earn incomes, then why are we living?"

But soon after that interview, amid mounting controversy over his sales tactics, Kaye's National Investment Institute collapsed reportedly owing more than $40 million to 3500 investors.

His failed property investment business has dogged Kaye ever since, with ongoing court cases and action by regulators.

He was found in 2004 in the Federal Court to have breached the Trade Practices Act for misleading conduct in the promotion of a millionaires investment course.

One deal from that time has haunted Kaye – the Oasis housing project in St Kilda, in which he bought about 200 apartments to on-sell through his seminars.

Some purchasers alleged the apartment prices were heavily inflated. Kaye was charged after being accused of deceiving St George Bank of $18 million to finance his plunge into the Oasis project. The case was discontinued in 2008 when a witness significantly changed his evidence.

In 2010, Kaye's troubles continued when he was disqualified from managing corporations for five years, stemming from his role as a property spruiker.

But while Kaye, now 45, has receded from public view, associates from that time and copy-cats have sprung up to run similar operations.

They include his sister Julia, who once purportedly fell out with Kaye, and has had a key role at Market First, which is marketing projects on Melbourne's western fringe.