Two women, including one claiming to be a fortune teller and feng shui master, have been charged for allegedly defrauding $70 million from a “vulnerable” Vietnamese community in Sydney.<\/p>\n
Police alleged a 53-year-old woman exploited clients by persuading them to take out financial loans \u2014 keeping a share for herself \u2014 based on a prediction there was a “billionaire” in their future.<\/p>\n
The fraud was allegedly orchestrated with assistance from a 25-year-old woman.<\/p>\n
About 6am on Wednesday, strike force detectives \u2014 with assistance from Raptor Squad \u2014 executed a search warrant at an address in Dover Heights and arrested the two women.<\/p>\n
Police seized financial documents, mobile phones, electronics, luxury handbags, more than $6,000 in casino chips and a 40-gram gold bar worth $10,000.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Police also seized a gold bar while executing a search warrant. (Supplied: NSW Police)<\/p>\n
The NSW Crime Commission froze an additional $15 million worth of assets, bringing the total amount linked to the syndicate to $75 million.<\/p>\n
The two women were taken to Surry Hills Police Station, where the 53-year-old was charged with 39 offences, including knowingly directing activities of a criminal group and 19 counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception.<\/p>\n
She was refused bail to appear in Downing Centre Local Court on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old was charged with offences including two counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception and participating in criminal group contributing criminal activity.<\/p>\n
She was granted conditional bail to also appear in Downing Centre Local Court in January.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Police seized $6,600 in casino chips during the arrests. (Supplied: NSW Police)<\/p>\n
Criminal syndicate targeted<\/p>\n
NSW Police have made the arrests under Strike Force Myddleton, investigating a criminal syndicate targeting Sydney automotive financing companies.<\/p>\n
The strike force initially uncovered the syndicate was allegedly using stolen personal information to apply for loans through various financial companies to purchase luxury “ghost cars” that did not exist.<\/p>\n
Investigations then revealed its operations allegedly extended to large-scale personal, business and home loan fraud against multiple financial institutions.<\/p>\n
As part of ongoing inquiries, detectives identified the two women were allegedly involved with the syndicate.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Financial crime squad detectives arrested two women over their alleged involvement in the syndicate. (Supplied: NSW Police)<\/p>\n
Seventeen people have previously been charged under Strike Force Myddleton and remain before the courts, with the NSW Crime Commission restraining $60 million in assets.<\/p>\n
Commander of the Financial Crimes Squad, Detective Superintendent Gordon Arbinja, said the strike force had evolved since its inception.<\/p>\n
“What began as an investigation into fraudulent car financing has expanded into uncovering one of the most sophisticated financial crime syndicates I have seen in my career,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Superintendent Arbinja said.<\/p>\n
“Our detectives have worked tirelessly to uncover a network that has not only targeted financial institutions but also manipulated vulnerable individuals for personal gain.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two women, including one claiming to be a fortune teller and feng shui master, have been charged for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":374474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7278,4740,42480,4219,180305,180307,18217,180306,820,180311,180312,180309,115596,6459,50,17364,180310,180304,13048,180308,16966],"class_list":{"0":"post-374473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-arrested","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-charged","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-dover-heights","13":"tag-feng-shui-master","14":"tag-financial","15":"tag-fortune-teller","16":"tag-fraud","17":"tag-gold-bar","18":"tag-gordon-arbinja","19":"tag-laundering","20":"tag-luxury-handbags","21":"tag-money","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-nsw","24":"tag-strike-force-myddleton","25":"tag-surry-hills","26":"tag-sydney","27":"tag-vietnamese","28":"tag-women"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115538995870351519","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}