Notorious international conman Peter Foster wants his jail sentence reduced because he claims he was sentenced as fraudster and not a money launderer.

Last December, Foster, 45, of the Gold Coast, pleaded guilty in the Brisbane Supreme Court to laundering $300,000 he fraudulently obtained from the Bank of the Federated States of Micronesia.

He was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison and will be eligible for parole after 27 months and had already spent 305 days on parole.

In the Court of Appeal yesterday, Tony Glynn SC, for Foster, said his client should have received a lesser jail term because "everyone" in the sentencing hearing emphasised the fraud but not money-laundering, the charged Foster pleaded guilty to.

"Everyone spent an enormous amount of time on the fraud aspect but said very little about the criminality of the offence my client committed – money laundering," he said.

Mr Glynn said he wasn't claiming the fraud should not have been mentioned but rather it should not have been gone into in great detail.

"The fraud should not be entirely disregarded in the facts of the money laundering because it had to be shown it wasn't involving terrorism, drug-running or gun-running," he said.

Mr Glynn said Foster's money laundering was at a low level which should have drawn at least six months less.

"It was not part of an organised crime activity," he emphasised.

However, Gary Long SC, for the Commonwealth Director of Public prosecutions, said the fraud was an inherent part of the offence of money laundering and the overall conduct had to be taken into account in the sentence.

"The sentencing judge was well aware he was dealing with money laundering offending," he said.

The Court of Appeal reserved its judgment.

Foster was arrested by Australian Federal Police officers in February after arriving at Brisbane Airport on a flight from Vanuatu.

The court was told Foster, who has previous convictions for fraud, took out a $580,000 loan to develop a tourist resort on an island 80 nautical miles from Suva, in Fiji.

The bank approved the loan but placed the funds in an account and made it a condition that it receive signed directives about what the money would be used for.

Foster made the nine requests for the transfers saying it was money for his development.

But the court was told he provided false documents and false photographs so he could use the money for other purposes, including paying outstanding rent on a girlfriend's house on the Gold Coast and repaying his own credit card debt and the debt of family members.