Mrs Sayer warned that while the Law Society possessed a solicitors’ fidelity fund, many victims could end up penniless because Fredericks convinced them to hand over cash.

“A large percentage of the missing millions was delivered in cash and there are many people who, in trusting him, walked away with little to no documentation,” she said.

Fredericks’s web of deceit has shattered countless lives including that of Mark Styles, who is wheelchair-bound after breaking his neck 13 years ago.

Mr Styles, 41, said: “I gave Fredericks $85,000 of my compensation payout to purchase me a farm in the country.

He told me he had located the perfect place near Tamworth. I now know that was a lie to extract more cash from me. I’m now forced to live at my parents’ house, in which I’ve effectively been a prisoner since the accident.”

Fredericks was born in Germany shortly after World War II and moved to Australia with his family when he was young.

He opened Eddie Fredericks & Co in Lidcombe in the early 1970s. During the next 30 years he established a loyal client base and became a popular Catholic Church figure, using his knowledge of law to help hundreds of migrants settle in.

By the time he branched out into investment management five years ago, he controlled the trust of an entire community.

Offering between 12 and 30 per cent interest, he had no shortage of takers.

But in August last year, one of his clients contacted the Law Society, saying a $20,000 investment loan hadn’t been repaid. Two days later, Fredericks’s law certificate was suspended and a receiver was appointed.

In September last year he sold his Sandringham waterfront mansion for $2.6 million, but friends say he continued to drink and gamble heavily.

On February 20, he died of a heart attack, aged 56.

On Wednesday, angry creditors learned of his unadvertised funeral at Rookwood Cemetery.

Retired NSW police officer Ken Sawkins, who lost $26,500, was one silent protester who mingled with mourners.

“I’ve been chasing him since last July,” he said. “Fortunately for him, this was the closest I got.”

Maryse Kutschukian was also present after being forced to take her mother out of an old people’s home. “He stole $12,500 from me and the worst thing was that he knew about my plight,” she said.

Fredericks’s former lawyer Greg Walsh said his client had suffered “a lonely, shameful death”.