Insurers counting their multimillion-dollar losses from the collapse of Perth-based authorised representative company Winley in April may have been unwittingly bankrolling an amazing global event organised by the couple accused of emptying Winley’s broker trust fund.

For seven months last year Steve and Chandanie Godwin mounted an expensive and ultimately unsuccessful campaign to organise a death-defying stunt that would attract a global online audience and had the potential to raise billions of dollars.

Called Death Dive, the stunt involved an unnamed person jumping out of an aircraft in the stratosphere without oxygen or a parachute and landing in shark-infested waters.

Death Challenge Inc, “a new business venture that practises commercially sustainable philanthropy”, was registered in the US in February last year.

In a media release published globally on December 15, the company announced “the official date of the most spectacular and perilous event ever to be broadcast live”.

The event was to take place on March 25 this year – Good Friday – to coincide with World Water Day.

At 3.33pm GMT “the Challenger”, a super-athlete who was to remain anonymous and masked, was to jump out of a jet 15.3km high without the aid of a pressure suit, oxygen or parachute. If he survived he would land in shark-filled waters – “all in a bid to stop death by dirty water”.

The jump was to be streamed live to a global pay-per-view audience, all of whom would be able to vote whether or not to “save the Challenger” by offering so-called lifelines.

Both the online audience and those at the dive site were to be invited to purchase votes before and during the jump, saying yes or no to three possible lifelines.

The first would be offered at about 7000 metres, when a circling aircraft was to toss out a parachute, which the Challenger would “try to chase down and put on under near-impossible conditions”.

The second lifeline at about 6000 metres would see a rescue skydiver pursue the challenger “in an attempt to complete the first-ever mid-air hook-up without any safety equipment”.

At 4500 metres a plane would release a towrope, which the Challenger would “try to grab and use to sky-surf into the water” – where the sharks would presumably be waiting.

Suicidal? Even the promotional blurb suggests it’s pretty much a one-way trip to oblivion for the Challenger, “one of the world's most experienced extreme athletes, having completed just under 20,000 skydives, more than 5000 high dives and thousands of hours of cage-free dives with great white sharks over the past 30 years”. 

The Challenger – who was to “use multiple extreme disciplines in an attempt to survive a dive more than 260 times higher than the current world record” – was also a man who wants to see the money before he saves himself.

The publicity says no lifelines would be accepted by the Challenger “unless 1 billion votes are purchased globally”.

As we can assume a vote would cost a dollar or five, that’s a lot of money. But wait, there’s more. All else having failed, our intrepid birdman would still refuse to grab the towrope for an aerial surf to the water “unless 7.125 billion votes are first secured”.

Presumably all the money would be upfront, and in the hands of the organisers. Hmmm.

Apart from pay-per-view tickets to watch online, VIP tickets were to be available to watch the event from an aircraft or boat at the dive site, or underwater with sharks at the point of impact.

There was even a special option to ride to the stratosphere with the Challenger.

It all sounds so fanciful, except for the fact the Godwins sank serious money into preparing for the event.

A source contacted by insuranceNEWS.com.au says as many as 70 people – each earning $US250-$US300 ($339-$407) a day – were employed for seven months on the project.

Working – and in some cases living – in two houses in California owned by the Godwins, the staff assembled to build up the pre-publicity and such facilities as the online payment system were concerned about the motives behind the work they were doing.

“We thought it might be a money-laundering operation,” the source said. “Maybe the stuff about being altruistic was just an alibi. We all said this thing was crazy. But we thought after a while, maybe it was crazy enough to work.

“Chandanie and Steve were very, very secretive. Taking pictures of them was absolutely banned. She was really no-nonsense. She did all the talking. It was a real command and control situation.

“Steve would walk around wearing a hoodie. He never talked to anyone. We began to wonder if he was the Challenger.”

The source says the Godwins would disappear for long periods during the seven months of employment. “They’d be back for two months and then they’d be gone again. They lived in one of the houses when they were around.”

Models were employed to work on videos promoting the event, and a remarkable 500 interviews with celebrities were conducted. These were to be used to intensify interest in the event in the lead-up to March.

The source says one of those celebrities was Hollywood star Billy Bob Thornton. “Most of them were B-listers – sportspeople, movie actors, people like that.”

A promotional video still exists on the internet, which can be viewed here.

“The whole thing was crazy – complicated and convoluted. Money was being thrown around like it didn’t matter. We even had personal chefs at each house.

“But no one really knew what they were doing. The people at the top were clueless. This was the most disorganised thing I’ve seen in my life. It was indulgent and senseless.”

The website put together to promote the event was “really expensive”, the source told insuranceNEWS.com.au.

But on December 23 instructions were received to stop developing the website, and on January 10 it disappeared. Most of the workers were laid off, although the source says a few individuals have been retained by the Godwins – “I’m not sure what for.”

The source says part of the California team’s work was aimed at raising funds to advance the Death Challenge project, but the most raised in any one day was $US3000 ($4070).

Which leads to a whole range of intriguing questions:

Was the money taken from Winley used to bolster the Death Challenge project, or perhaps to replace capital lost in its creation?

Was this whole thing really intended to raise billions of dollars to bring clean water to communities around the world?

Or was it just an absurd scam that finally, after a great deal of money was spent, fell apart?