Criminals behind SA’s con-jobs, scams or frauds who’s get rich quick schemes landed them in court
Their powers of deception were behind lucrative planned rip-offs and swindles, but these convicted criminals all ended up proving crime doesn’t pay.
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More and more South Australians are becoming victims of fraud, scams and con-artists.
For some, it’s the matter of frivolously clicking the link on a dodgy text and having to change your passwords.
But for others the result is being swindled out of hundreds of thousands of dollars or having to foot the bill of a multimillion-dollar loss.
New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveals about 11 million Australians were exposed to scams in 2020-21.
While more than half of them were able to escape the criminal that targeted them, 723,100 victims were not so lucky.
Australians lost more than $850 million to scams in 2020 alone, according to the ACCC, with $50 million of those losses coming via Bitcoin or other crypto payments.
Though some rip-offs have changed thanks to the digital age, some old fashioned scam artists or fraudsters are still getting around.
From a couple who fleeced their dad to a man who used old-school tricks in his cons, here are some the SA criminals who tried to get rich quick but were busted.
Jason Bran Lees and Emily Jane Walker – The Big Hack
Seaton couple Jason Bran Lees and Emily Jane Walker were part of a hacking scheme that netted $18m and funded a daily drug habit.
Prosecutors revealed “IT whiz” Lees, 33, was the scam’s “architect”, creating a virus that hacked into the systems of several small businesses primarily in regional areas.
The virus tapped into payrolls and redirected funds to bank accounts Walker had fraudulently created using personal details of 20,000 staff members – also stolen by Lees.
Walker, 29, used bookkeeping skills and compiled thousands of spreadsheets to keep track of the “systemic and sophisticated” hack.
The spreadsheets documented accounts, deposits and withdrawals with potential to net the couple $1.15m, but some transaction were never finalised while others were recovered by anti-fraud systems.
The pair pleaded guilty to several online fraud charges in the Adelaide District Court and Lees received an eight-year and seven-month prison sentence with a non-parole period of five years for his role in the scheme.
Walker was sentenced to four years and 11 months in jail with a non-parole period of two years and 10 months.
Brenan Leonard Rodgers – The High Roller
Brenan Leonard Rodgers used old-school tricks to con staff out of thousands of dollars of jewellery and a luxury car.
Rodgers, 50, used a dodgy payment care plan to nick a gold watch, gold bracelet and diamond ring from a jeweller near the Adelaide Airport, a court heard.
He should have paid $3300 for the haul, but an hour later his payment still had not come through.
An observant jewellery store employee noted Rodgers had a swipe card for a nearby hotel on him.
A day later when Rodgers was arrested, he was blinged up in the jewellery and living the high life in a luxury BMW.
Further investigations found Rodgers’ $275,000 car had also been illegally gained.
He had 11 days earlier he deceived a car dealership and was able to drive away with the Beamer for just $500.
“A decision was made to lend the car to you on the basis of your apparent history with the company,” presiding Judge Geraldine Davison said.
“That showed you had purchased five cars from them, but later checks showed they had all been cancelled.”
For all his “guile” and cunning, Rodgers pleaded guilty in the District Court to dishonestly dealing with documents and deceiving another to benefit himself and ended up sentenced to three years, nine months and 11 days in prison without parole for at least two years and a month.
Glenda Ivy Burgess – The Concrete Con
A 63-year-old Hillbank woman, and long-time employee of Adelaide Brighton Cement was found guilty in the District Court of ripping off her employer to the tune of $12m.
Glenda Ivy Burgess’s crimes – 18 counts of aggravated deception – were enough to see a jury deliberate for four hours before returning a majority verdict.
Despite the $12m haul, no motive for Burgess’s offending could be decided with Judge Adam Kimber saying he was satisfied she benefited in some way but he could “neither identify nor quantify” how.
During her trial the court heard how Burgess was an accounts worker for the well-known Adelaide company when she falsified business records to hide millions of dollars of debt belonging to another company, Concrete Supply.
It was revealed Concrete Supply paid $20m for $32m worth of concrete and Burgess cooked the books to hide the discrepancy.
After pleading not guilty but being convicted at trial, Burgess was jailed for seven years with a non-parole period of four years and three months.
Ashley Louise Christmas and Daniel James Langmead – The Family Fraudsters
A daughter’s “breathtaking” and “horrific” betrayal of her father left him emotionally crippled after she teamed up with her partner to defraud him of $86,183.
Hills couple Ashley Louise Christmas and Daniel James Langmead used Phillip Christmas’s credit card 1768 times between November 2017 and April 2020 in the Adelaide Hills.
They pleaded in the Mt Barker Magistrates Court guilty to dishonestly taking property without consent.
Mr Christmas wrote an emotional victim impact statement to the court detailing how the offending had put an “enormous stress” on his brain – something made all the worse due to his ongoing suffering with Parkinson’s.
“There are no words that can explain my feelings of sadness, betrayal and the gut-wrenching pain I continue to suffer since discovering what my daughter Ashley Christmas has done,” Mr Christmas said.
Ashley Christmas’s lawyer told the court the stolen money was used for “normal things people would spend money on day-to-day, rather than get a job”.
Langmead and Christmas were sentenced in the Christies Beach Magistrates Court to one year and 18 days imprisonment and one year, 10 months and 22 days imprisonment respectively.
Langmead was ordered to pay $19,977.88 back to Mr Christmas and Christmas would front the remaining $65,497.39.
They were both able to serve their sentence on home detention.
Joshua Luke Matheson – The Salary Sacrificer
A convicted sex offender serving time in prison claimed to the tax office he was earning almost seven figures a year – more than major company head honchos.
Joshua Luke Matheson was found guilty of tax fraud by a jury after pleading not guilty and received a five-year prison sentence for attempting and obtaining a financial advantage by deception.
They came while he was serving a nine-year sentence for maintaining an unlawful sexual relationship with a young girl for seven years.
The District Court heart, in the 2013-14 financial year, despite being jobless and earning just $5000 in Centrelink allowances, Matheson made a bold claim to the tax office he had actually made $96,518 with $16,000 worth of tax deductions
His boldness saw him paid $29,000 by the tax office and, buoyed by that success, he tried the same trick the following year, the court was told.
But his greed got the better of him and when he claimed to be owed $466,805 in withheld tax red flags were raised at the ATO.
He told them he had earned $926,929 from several income streams and had $905,564 in tax deductions including $849,664 on “other expenses”.
The court heard when he was not paid the staggering amount he called the tax office asking why there had been a delay.
Years later, following a lengthy investigation and still without his claimed tax return, Matheson was stung for the audacious attempt to fleece the tax office.
The five-year sentence he received would not even begin until the non-parole period for his sex offending finished on September 2, 2024.
Christopher Lloyd George – The Superannuation Scammer
“You did not seem to have any other means of supporting yourself, other than through the scams you committed.”
They were the words of Judge Geraldine Davison when sentencing One Tree Hill man Christopher Lloyd George, then 35, for a con which ripped off fraud victims to the tune of a further $233,000.
The District Court heard what Judge Davison meant by “supporting yourself” was in fact using the stolen money to buy heroin, hotel rooms and flights – for which he was charged with 69 aggravated counts of deception.
That was instead of what he had told his victims.
Lloyd’s con was callous and targeted retirees who had already been scammed.
The court heard he claimed he would “travel the world” to recoup their money for them if they paid him for it.
His matters were drawn out by bold claims he was working for a Dubai-based American businessman and character references, which Judge Davison repeatedly questioned the veracity of.
His victims told the court George was “nothing short of pure evil” and Judge Davison commented on his lack of remorse when sentencing him.
“You have little insight in relation to the harm that you have caused (your) victims and the fact that they may never be able to recover from the financial losses they have suffered,” she said.
George was found guilty by Judge Davison and sentenced to more than eight years’ jail with a non-parole period of four years and 10 months.
Seang Leng Heng, Nathan Sarinn and Nay Chy – The Fall of the Phoenix
A complex three-man operation, known as a phoenixing scam, was unravelled following an investigation spanning eight years and revealing fraud totalling $4.5 million.
Businessmen Seang Leng Heng, Nathan Sarinn and Nay Chy received jail sentences ranging from eight years to four years for their involvement in the long-term scam which brought charges of conspiracy to defraud the Commonwealth.
And it was their “greed not need” that underscored the operation that saw four unwitting individuals become company directors of multimillion-dollar companies, according the Judge Julia McIntyre.
The court heard Heng, Sarinn and Chy made use of SA’s labour hire industry and their slaughterhouse and fruit grove businesses to defraud the Australian government of the eye-watering figure.
It was found the trio would target a foreign worker in their employment and take them to an accountant and install them at the head of their own business, making them sole director and shareholder.
Each company would pick up contracts and send a network of hundreds of workers to labour-intensive industries.
The companies were paid for their work, to the tune of $24.2 million across six companies, but most of it was withdrawn in cash, leaving the company directors unable to pay the taxes accrued on the earnings.
In one case there was $9 left in a company account when it was wound up.
Judge Julia McIntyre said Heng was the “architect” of the scheme while the other men had specific roles.
He received the longest term of imprisonment of eight years after being found guilty at trial in the District Court.
Chy was sentenced to five years behind bars following the trial while Sarinn, who pleaded guilty before trial, received four years for his involvement.
Stephen McNamara – The Lying Lawyer
An Adelaide lawyer used his standing in a legal firm to defraud deceased estates of almost $500,000 and then claimed he was conned himself.
Stephen McNamara was found guilty following a District Court trial of 33 charges including 17 counts of theft, seven of them aggravated, and 16 charges of using fabricated evidence as his plan became completely unstuck.
A jailhouse appeal claiming he had been denied justice was in early 2021 rejected.
Instead, McNamara would continue serving the nine-year prison sentence he received.
His plan was simple, but a serendipitous discovery by the family of one of two deceased estates McNamara tried to rip-off saw it unravel quicker than he could recoup the funds he had misappropriated, the court heard.
So quickly, in fact, McNamara told that family, and the other family he had taken from, the funds had been “invested” and were gaining interest.
The court was told, in reality, he had transferred $480,000 from the first estate into a trust he had drained over 12 transfers and used to pay off his credit card bill, mortgage and to pay employees.
When the first family came looking, he transferred a second $500,000 estate to them to buy time.
But when the second family asked where their inheritance was, he ran out of rope.
Malcolm Simpson – The Bumbling Businessman
A one time high-profile chairman of the Adelaide 36ers went from riches to rags and tried to bring down others with him.
Malcolm Simpson defrauded another high-profile SA business, Drakes Supermarket, of $207,250 and felt the brunt of his deception when he was sentenced to a term of imprisonment.
A court heard Simpson used a business relationship he had generated with the organisation to convince them to pay for services that never eventuated.
The one-time owner of Champion Travel had fallen flat and was unable to pay back the company after they asked for their money to be returned, the court was told.
“He should be grateful that Drakes realised something was up and pulled the pin because it’s almost certain that the offending would have continued,” prosecutor Peter Longson said of the fraud.
“He had no money, he had no financial resources and he was never going to be able to find a quick $200,000 to put back in without taking the money from another third party.”
Simpson pleaded guilty in the District Court to five counts of deception and was spared actual time in prison following his defence counsel telling the court he had been “very embarrassed” by his actions which had also brought about the end to his marriage.
Instead, he walked free with a three-year and three month prison sentence hanging over his head as it was suspended by Judge Joanne Tracey.
Nicole Vainerere – The Criminal Carer
She told the court she was just following her husband’s suggestion, but in defrauding Centrelink of more than $25,000 a mother caring for her autistic son was the one who copped the punishment.
Nicole Anne Vainerere, then 45 and a carer for her autistic teenage son, decided to go along with her husband’s plan to not declare his income.
Vainerere pleaded guilty in the District Court to two counts of obtaining financial advantage.
The decision to incorrectly represent her partner’s income on the 57th occasion proved to be the Largs Bay mum’s ultimate undoing as the misreporting topped out at $194,378.
On one of the reporting occasions, the court heard, Vainerere reported her partner’s income as $0 when he actually took in more than $52,000.
Magistrate Karim Soetratma described how Vainerere’s relationship with her partner had been “emotionally and financially abusive”, but said the offending was “lengthy (and) sustained”.
She had started paying off the debt by the time she was in court.
Vainerere escaped immediate imprisonment but had convictions recorded and a suspended sentence of six months’ jail dangled over her on a two-year good behaviour bond.
Scott Hill – The Grounded Gambler
A man’s involvement with a community netball club managed to see him escape jail despite pleading guilty to defrauding a government department to the tune of $31,000.
The court heard Scott Matthew Hill, who was born in Port Augusta and attended Rostrevor College, had developed a horse racing gambling addiction and racked up a debt of $68,000 that he was unable to pay off.
So, looking for an escape route, Hill made 94 withdrawals of nearly $32,000 using a company travel card while he was working for the Defence Department, it heard.
Magistrate Terence Forrest in the Elizabeth Magistrates Court said the withdrawals were used to bet on horse racing in the “vain hope you could have a large win”.
When the wins never came, Hill continued on a downward slope until he was found out by a superior in April 2019, the court was told.
By the time he faced court Hill had managed to repay $14,000, but it was not enough for him to walk off without a conviction.
Mr Forrest sentenced him to a suspended term of imprisonment totalling eight months and one week, a three year good behaviour bond, recorded four convictions, and ordered him to pay the remaining $17,800.68.
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