Briton Malcolm Webster told his twin sister he had lost all his money in offshore investments shortly after the car crash in which he allegedly tried to kill his New Zealand wife, a Scottish court has been told.
Caroline Walters told the High Court in Glasgow her brother had contacted her from a hotel in Auckland following the collision on February 12, 1999, STV reported.
The family of his second wife, Auckland nurse Felicity Drumm, who was in the car with Webster, discovered about the same time that her life savings had gone missing from a joint bank account.
Mrs Walters told the court that Webster told her in the phone call that he was transferring Ms Drumm's savings back to the UK after his own money had been lost in investments in the Cayman Islands.
She told the court he planned to transfer money from the sale of his home at Easter Letter Cottage in Aberdeenshire to help purchase a new home in Auckland in 1999 with his second wife, but the sale fell through and he was left with nothing.
Webster, 52, is accused of attempting to murder Ms Drumm in New Zealand, and of murdering his first wife, Claire Webster, in a crash in Aberdeenshire in 1994 after drugging her with Temazepam.
The court was told Webster also lied to his sister about having leukaemia while he was living with another woman, Simone Banerjee, in Oban.
The jury heard that Ms Drumm wanted to cut off all ties with Webster and refused to let him see their son in the wake of the New Zealand crash.
The boy lives in Auckland with his mother, who is still married to Webster, but estranged.
Mrs Walters said she told her brother he must have been "one of the unluckiest people in the world'' after Mr Webster told her about a fire at the home of Ms Drumm's parents in Auckland.
This followed a fire at the home Mr Webster shared with Ms Drumm in Aberdeenshire, the BBC reported.
Prosecutor Derek Ogg QC said: "Or he's a crook''.
Mrs Walters responded: "I wouldn't say that, just not very good with money.''
She told the court how Mr Webster said he had leukaemia while he was living with Ms Banarjee.
She said that on one occasion he turned up at her home in the south of England wearing a hat and when he took it off his head was shaved and so were his eyebrows.
The court was told that he kept up the deception until January 2008 when he finally confessed it had been a lie.
Mr Ogg then asked if she knew Mr Webster had become engaged to Ms Banarjee and she said: "No. I knew he was very, very fond of her.''
Mr Ogg said: You knew he was still married to Felicity Drumm?''.
Mrs Walters replied: "I had an inkling that Simone might not know. I'd hoped that Malcolm would have told her.''
The trial, before Lord Bannatyne, continues.
