{"id":29993,"date":"2025-11-13T09:10:56","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T14:10:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=29993"},"modified":"2025-11-13T09:10:56","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T14:10:56","slug":"australia-police-arrest-fortune-teller-accused-of-running-46m-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2025\/11\/13\/australia-police-arrest-fortune-teller-accused-of-running-46m-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia police arrest ‘fortune teller’ accused of running $46m scam"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A mother-and-daughter duo – one claiming to be a fortune teller and a feng shui master – have been charged over allegedly scamming almost A$70m ($46m; \u00a335m) from “vulnerable” Vietnamese targets in Australia.<\/b><\/p>\n

The mother, 53, was arrested in the exclusive suburb of Dover Heights in Sydney on Wednesday, along with her daughter, 25. Police say they were an intrinsic part of a “highly sophisticated” fraud and money laundering syndicate.<\/p>\n

The mother allegedly convinced her victims to take out loans, keeping a share herself, by telling them she foresaw a “billionaire” in their future.<\/p>\n

She was refused bail due to appear in court on Thursday. Her daughter was granted bail with a court date in January.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The mother faces 39 charges including directing the activities of a criminal group and dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception.<\/p>\n

Her daughter was charged with seven offences including recklessly dealing with proceeds of crime and being part of a criminal group.<\/p>\n

During the early-morning arrest at the pair’s multi-million-dollar mansion, police seized financial documents, mobile phones, luxury handbags, a 40 gram gold bar worth A$10,000 ($6,500; \u00a35,000) and A$6,600 in casino chips.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"A<\/picture><\/span>A 40 gram gold bar worth A$10,000 was seized by police during Wednesday’s arrests (Image: NSW Police)<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Police said the mother was an influential and trusted member of her community and as a fortune teller, she would give readings to clients, some who divulged they were in financial hardship.<\/p>\n

She would then predict a billionaire would come to their aid, and this “would happen sooner rather than later” if they took out a loan.<\/p>\n

As part of Wednesday’s arrest, investigators also froze about A$15m in assets, adding to A$60m in assets already seized from a wider probe into the syndicate that started last year.<\/p>\n

Police launched Strike Force Myddleton to investigate a criminal group allegedly using stolen identities to get loans for “ghost cars” – luxury cars that did not exist.<\/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 at the helm of the Financial Crimes Squad,” said Det Supt Gordon Arbinja, commander of the financial crimes squad.<\/p>\n

Police claim the criminal group’s activities include “large-scale personal, business and home loan fraud against multiple financial institutions”.<\/p>\n

According to an investigation by the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), the mother-and-daughter duo are linked to what’s been dubbed the Penthouse Syndicate, as the alleged ringleader lived in an A$18m penthouse in Sydney.<\/p>\n

Police claim the group defrauded major Australian banks of up to A$250m with allegedly corrupt bank staff approving loans to help the syndicate buy multiple properties in Sydney, according to the SMH.<\/p>\n

More than a dozen people have already been arrested, charged with a range of offences including fraud and money laundering, in what is believed to be one of the largest such cases in Australia.<\/p>\n

Police said they expect to make more arrests with a focus on the “professional facilitators” of the criminal group including lawyers, accountants and property developers.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A mother-and-daughter duo – one claiming to be a fortune teller and a feng shui master – have been charged over allegedly scamming almost A$70m ($46m; \u00a335m) from “vulnerable” Vietnamese targets in Australia. The mother, […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[350,2,6],"tags":[819,11810,7602,11811,305,1484,11812,3862],"class_list":{"0":"post-29993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"category-news","9":"category-world","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-deception","12":"tag-dover-heights","13":"tag-financial-crime-syndicate","14":"tag-fraud","15":"tag-money-laundering","16":"tag-penthouse-syndicate","17":"tag-sydney","18":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29995,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29993\/revisions\/29995"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}