Adam Jones: Ex-Liberal Party staffer admits to widespread $5.5m fraud

A sophisticated cyber fraudster has finally come clean over his elaborate scheme to swindle millions of dollars from super funds, businesses and even a country school.

A former Liberal Party staffer who hacked into and funnelled over $5.5 million from superannuation funds, businesses and even a country school has pleaded guilty to serious fraud offences.

Adam Jones, 32, from Sydney’s inner west, was arrested while sitting at a table in Green Square Library last February.

It brought an end to a lengthy police investigation tracking down the fraudster who ran a sophisticated operation across Australia between 2016 and 2020.

Police also seized a $64,000 Mercedes Benz following his arrest purchased with the proceeds of crime.

Adam Jones. Picture: Facebook

Jones, who remains in jail on remand, pleaded guilty to five charges on Thursday at Central Local Court relating to over $5.5 million of stolen money. A whopping 77 further charges were withdrawn and dismissed.

Jones defrauded high-value superannuation funds and also a long list of businesses and organisations whose payroll systems he would hack into and funnel money from.

His victims were based across Australia and included the likes of Calrossy Anglican School in Tamworth, in country NSW, from whom he stole over $40,000 in 2018.

Other businesses he ripped off included Rawdon Hill Constructions (Victoria) who lost $118,000, Vast Electrical (Victoria) who lost $169,000, and DJ Wear (Sydney) who lost $198,000.

The agreed facts stated he also stole millions of dollars from high-value superannuation funds using a mountain of fraudulent documents.

Adam Jones. Picture: Twitter

In late 2019, he defrauded one victim’s super fund of $1.7 million and another victim’s super fund of $1.2 million.

Most of the money he stole during his lengthy criminal operation has been recovered. However, at least $690,000 has not been recovered.

The agreed facts stated one of his methods of defrauding money from unsuspecting businesses was to hack into their payroll systems using stolen or compromised remote desktop protocol (RDP) credentials.

“Remote desktop protocol (RDP) is an industry standard for controlling one computer from another,” the agreed facts stated.

“Once access was gained, the offender would execute a script. A script is a small program or sequence of instructions to automate a task.

“The script run by the offender is designed to search the payroll system of the victim organisation’s network and locate a file containing the instructions for banking payments.

He pleaded guilty at Sydney’s Central Local Court (pictured).

“Once located, this file would then be altered to remove the legitimate banking details and replace them with the bank details of fraudulent accounts previously created by the offender.”

The agreed facts stated Jones used fraudulent bank accounts which he would funnel money into.

He would sometimes then launder the money through cryptocurrency exchanges to make it difficult to trace.

During the police investigation, detectives found Jones had two addresses he was linked to in South Australia and two in Sydney’s inner west.

Two other people, Emily Walker and Jason Lees, both from South Australia, have also been charged in relation to Jones’ operation and remain before the courts.

Prior to 2012, Jones worked as a Liberal Party staffer doing policy and media work.

Jones was on Centrelink payments between 2013 up until his arrest.

Jones has pleaded guilty to two counts of dishonestly obtain financial advantage by deception, deal with identity information to commit an indictable offence, unauthorised function with intent to commit serious offence, and deal with proceeds of crime.

A charge of deal with identity information to commit an indictable offence and possess prohibited drug will be considered on a Form 1 at sentencing.

His matter will next be mentioned in the NSW District Court in April.