Two alleged scam ringleaders accused of defrauding banks by duping them into lending money for luxury cars, homes and businesses have had $38 million in assets seized.<\/p>\n
Police allege the two men, aged 38 and 34, were at the head of a syndicate that began by using stolen identification to apply for loans to purchase luxury “ghost cars” that did not exist.<\/p>\n
Detectives from the NSW Police Financial Crimes Squad claim the men then went beyond cars, using the same method to secure business and home loans from banks.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A Bentley seized by the Financial Crimes Squad as part of a fraud probe where $38 million in assets have been restrained by police. (Supplied: NSW Police)<\/p>\n
The men have been charged with a combined 194 offences related to fraud, money laundering and weapons possession.<\/p>\n
The 38-year-old Barangaroo man is accused of committed $12 million worth of fraud while police accuse the 34-year-old Seaforth man of committing $4 million worth of fraud.<\/p>\n
Investigations began in January 2024 when police started looking into what they described as a “highly sophisticated” money laundering scheme.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The 38-year-old arrested in Barangaroo has been charged with more than 80 offences. (Supplied: NSW Police)<\/p>\n
In total police have now charged eight people and seized $38 million in assets from across Sydney.<\/p>\n
Among the millions in assets seized by police on Wednesday were two Bentleys, a Ferrari 360 and luxury watches.<\/p>\n
It came after sweeping dawn raids across Barangaroo, Seaworth, North Ryde, Macquarie Park, Sylvania Waters, Camperdown, Mortdale, Haymarket, Martin Place and the CBD.<\/p>\n
Images provided by NSW Police show a treasure trove of watches worth hundreds of thousands of dollars among foreign currency seized on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Ferrari 360 seized by police under Strike Force Myddleton. (Supplied: NSW Police)<\/p>\n
Vision showed the bikie-busting Raptor Squad storming a luxury Barangaroo property before leading the 38-year-old out in a sparkly Louis Vuitton jacket.<\/p>\n
The same video showed police towing away a red Bentley SUV from Barangaroo.<\/p>\n
Photos depict the showroom where police seized a Ferrari, a Bentley and a slew of high-end luxury vehicles.<\/p>\n
The pair have been denied bail and are due to appear in the Downing Centre and Manly local courts on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Ringleaders lived ‘opulent lifestyle’<\/p>\n
Financial Crimes Squad Commander Gordon Arbinja speaking to reporters on Thursday. (ABC News: Ethan Rix)<\/p>\n
On Thursday police said the 38-year-old man had been renting a Barangaroo penthouse worth $18 million for $37,000 a month at the time of his arrest.<\/p>\n
Financial Crimes Squad Commander Gordon Arbinja said the syndicate had been operating over seven years.<\/p>\n
“The syndicate have since branched out into other areas mainly personal, business and home loan scams affecting financial institutions in NSW,” Superintendent Arbinja said.<\/p>\n
“The forensic accountant unit identified 91 accounts \u2026 where over $178 million has gone through these accounts.<\/p>\n
“We suspect all these monies are the proceeds of crime … These people lived an opulent lifestyle.”<\/p>\n
Describing the fraud as being “like a Ponzi scheme”, Superintendent Arbinja said the ringleaders would recruit others and share the profits.<\/p>\n
“We did ask one of the alleged offenders what they did for a living \u2026 he told investigators he was a professional gambler,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two alleged scam ringleaders accused of defrauding banks by duping them into lending money for luxury cars, homes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[31139,64,63,31136,31141,31140,826,31137,31142,31144,9431,29882,44,31146,4277,31143,31138,31145],"class_list":["post-33938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-alleged-ringleaders","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-barangaroo","tag-bentleys","tag-defrauding-banks","tag-ferrari","tag-financial-crimes-squad","tag-ghost-cars","tag-home-loans","tag-luxury-cars","tag-money-laundering","tag-news","tag-nsw-crime-commission","tag-nsw-police","tag-nsw-police-financial-crimes-squad","tag-raptor-squad","tag-weapons-possession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33938","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=33938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}