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,” 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":2,"featured_media":280286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[100471,64,63,23218,48,92042,162303,5480,162302,354,162307,162308,162305,156137,187,44,2733,162306,117390,670,162304,12632],"class_list":["post-280285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-arrested","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-charged","tag-crime","tag-dover-heights","tag-feng-shui-master","tag-financial","tag-fortune-teller","tag-fraud","tag-gold-bar","tag-gordon-arbinja","tag-laundering","tag-luxury-handbags","tag-money","tag-news","tag-nsw","tag-strike-force-myddleton","tag-surry-hills","tag-sydney","tag-vietnamese","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}