Annelise Sunderland sentencing begins after email fraud

A turf layer who almost scammed $1m from her victim in a ‘sophisticated’ fraud has avoided going to jail but must move from her Brisbane home. Find out why.

Annelise Sunderland leaves Parramatta Local Court on March 8 ahead of her sentencing.

Scammer Annelise Sunderland, who confessed to almost defrauding a woman by $1m, has avoided jail despite the prosecution wanting her in custody.

Sunderland admitted her fraudulent email almost cost a Canberra homebuyer $1m in December 2020.

Last month, Parramatta Local Court heard the unsuspecting victim, Kathryn Howell, had engaged the services of ACT law firm Graeme C Nettle and Associated Lawyers after she decided to sell her home and purchase a new one.

Ms Howell sent several emails to the law firm through its genuine domain, which was registered as nettle.com.

However, after finding a property six months later, the victim was sent correspondence from an email address using the domain niettle.com - with a strategically placed letter ‘i’.

Annelise Sunderland tried to scam $1m from a Canberra homebuyer.

Annelise Sunderland must return to Sydney to serve her sentence.

The email address had been registered in October 2020 by unknown persons.

The email purported to be from the law firm and advised Ms Howell to transfer the deposit of $1,044,050, into a National Australia Bank account for settlement to occur.

The account belonged to Sunderland, who police said was akin to a “money mule” and operated on behalf of unknown criminals involved in large scale internet fraud.

The court heard Ms Howell quickly realised the mistake after contacting the law firm to confirm the transfer. Her bank was able to retrieve all but $2000 of the payment.

The matter was reported to the NSW Police cybercrime squad, who launched an investigation under Strike Force Urban, which was set up to target cyber-enabled “invoice frauds” or business email compromise (BEC) frauds and the subsequent laundering of money obtained from them.

The court heard at the time of the offending, Sunderland had an account with ABC Bullion, which had a purchase order created and ready to be processed for 8kg of gold bullion worth $614,888.

The transaction was unable to be completed after NAB froze Sunderland’s accounts and returned the funds to Ms Howell.

Sunderland was arrested on November 24, 2021 and charged with two counts of recklessly dealing with proceeds of crime, to which she pleaded guilty.

On Wednesday, Parramatta Local Court heard how the former Parramatta resident was on a community correction order while she carried out the email fraud.

“There was relatively sophisticated behaviour on her part,’’ Magistrate Cate Follent said.

She imposed an intensive correction order on Sunderland but that cannot be carried out if an offender lives interstate so the matter was adjourned to March 15.

The extra week was granted to allow Sunderland time to make arrangements to return to Sydney from Brisbane so she can serve her sentence where the fraud was committed.

Her partner, who supported her in court, will post a $1000 surety.

The court heard while Sunderland’s mental health issues were at play, the magistrate was confident the community could be protected after Sunderland had taken steps to address her problems, which included enrolling in a 48-day rehabilitation program.

She also intends to repay the victim.

A Section 14 application, which allows an offender with a mental health impairment or cognitive impairment to avoid a criminal record, was refused early in proceedings on Wednesday.

Legal Aid unsuccessfully applied for Section 14 for two counts of recklessly dealing with the proceeds of crime greater than $5000 and two counts of dishonestly obtaining property by deception.

She was also charged with dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception.