Point Frederick: Sachin Raulio Montero ripped $1.3M off Bupa in fraudulent claims
A man used hundreds of aliases to rip off Bupa to the tune of $1.3 million, which he used to fund a lavish lifestyle including designer clothes, trips to Bali and a $150,000 Mercedes.
Central Coast
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A man has pleaded guilty to dealing with the proceeds of crime almost a year to the day after police raided his Point Frederick unit and seized more than $140,000 worth of designer clothes and a $151,500 Mercedes.
Sachin Raulio Montero pleaded guilty in Gosford Local Court to knowingly deal with the proceeds of crime and possessing a prohibited drug.
Another five charges, including dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception and four counts of possessing a prohibited drug, were placed on a Form 1 certificate to be considered when he is sentenced in the District Court.
An agreed set of facts states the 33-year-old defrauded Bupa Health Insurance a total of $1,306,718 by making false claims under hundreds of aliases.
The facts state in total between June 13, 2019 and April 8, 2020, Montero made 3540 successful claims with the proceeds paid into two Commonwealth and ANZ accounts in his name.
He also tried to dishonestly obtain a further $11,152.80 but was knocked back because his health insurance membership was on a watch list and he had either exceeded his maximum 28-day or daily claim limit.
Bupa began investigating false claims on August 26, 2019, when a staff member referred it to the company’s internal review team.
Bupa understood false identities were being used to create the policies and false details were being provided.
“An extensive search of Bupa Health insurance data revealed that the patient names given to the two bank accounts linked to the offender were different for most policies,” the facts state. “The offender used 484 individual patient names including his own.”
Bupa verified the claims were false after contacting various health care providers who checked their records and confirmed the services Montero had claimed back on Bupa had not been provided.
They also tracked him down to his mobile number, which was used to open several of the fraudulent policies.
Bupa contacted police in November 2019 and on May 5 last year provided Brisbane Water Police with a large case file, along with Montero’s CBA statements.
Bupa discovered Montero had used three Medicare numbers, which were valid but did not match the names he provided and was able to link two credit cards to many of the false policies.
“These credit cards were used to make small premium payments on a policy which allowed the policies to remain undetected until after the fraud had been committed,” the facts state.
Last year Montero agreed to settle with Bupa on terms set out in a deed dated August 3 in which he agreed to pay $80,000 upfront and then $1,100.10 a week until the settlement amount was paid in full.
Police analysis of the account statements for both the ANZ and CBA accounts show Montero spent the fraudulently obtained money on regular purchases from designer fashion retailers, a Mercedes AMG purchased in March last year for $151,500 along with “occasional trips to Bali, Sydney and Melbourne”.
On May 11, 2020 police received documents from ANZ which showed multiple credits from Bupa into his account and a number of debit transactions made to “high end designer stores”.
On the same day police searched his unit at 305 Shortland St, Point Frederick, where he denied banking with CBA and told police he obtained the money to buy the Mercedes from selling shares.
Officers found his CBA bank card, which Montero told them was expired but they could clearly see it wasn’t.
During the search police seized the Mercedes, 32 pairs of designer shoes with an approximate value of $35,000, one Tag Heuer, two Hublot and one Rolex watch worth about $100,000 as well as three Hermes belts and two designer satchel bags worth about $8000.
A number of laptops and two mobiles were also seized.
When questioned about the large number of shoes and accessories he said they were “knock offs” he purchased from Bali and Paddy’s markets.
They also found 3 vials of testosterone, 1 vial of drostanolone, three vials of trenbolone, and a box each of oxandronolone and stanozolol tablets.
Police heard the offender say he had just started a course of steroids and they were for his personal use.
He was taken to Woy Woy Police station where he declined to be interviewed.
Montero will face Gosford District Court next week when a date will be set for his sentence.
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