Retired nurse lost $15k in uni student’s alleged ATO phone scam: court

A retired nurse was tricked into handing over her life savings as part of an alleged phone scam, a court heard. A uni student has been charged but claims he was fooled into acting as the go-between.

Mohaiminul Kabir Chisty, 21, has been charged with fraud after an alleged scam targeting a retired nurse. Picture: Facebook

A university student has been denied bail after a “despicable” alleged scam cost a retired Sydney nurse losing her life savings, a court heard.

Mohaiminul Kabir Chisty, 21, was allegedly part of a scheme that involved scammers pretending to be police or Australian Taxation Office (ATO) officers and calling innocent people asking for money.

A 66-year-old Randwick woman received one such call on February 17, Parramatta Bail Court heard on Saturday.

Police have been told the caller, purporting to be from the ATO, threatened the woman with arrest and transferred her to a man who claimed he was a police officer.

Chisty is a Bangladeshi national in Australia on a student visa. Picture: Facebook

The woman was allegedly intimidated over several hours before withdrawing $15,000 and agreeing to hand it over.

Chisty, a University of Wollongong international relations student, allegedly arrived at her home and collected the money.

The court heard the woman managed to take a quick photo of Chisty before handing over the cash.

On Friday Chisty was arrested at Maroubra Police Station and charged with dishonestly obtain advantage by deception.

But when Chisty fronted Parramatta Bail Court today he claimed he was also a victim in the “deliberate fraud” scam.

His lawyer said Chisty was fooled into acting as an intermediary to go and get the money.

“He didn‘t know what was going on or why. All he was told was to give a password and get the money.”

Chisty claims he was fooled into being part of the elaborate fraud scam. Picture: Facebook

Chisty, a Bangladeshi national in Australia on a student visa, then gave the money to another person, the court heard.

Chisty, who worked as a pizza delivery driver, applied for bail and offered to hand in his passport to police and agree to daily reporting.

However Magistrate Anthony Spence, who said his own wife had been targeted by similar scam phone calls, found his ties to Australia were not strong enough.

“There is too much of this going on in the community,” he said.

“Even in my own residence my wife complained about getting these phone calls from foreign numbers and foreign accents asking for money.

“She hangs up straight away but some people are more gullible.”

Mr Spence said the alleged victim in this case gave over part of her life savings.

“It’s a despicable crime because it results in people who are the victims giving away parts of their life savings,” he said.

“In my view, (Chisty) doesn‘t have sufficient grounding in this country to honour his bail.”

Bail was refused and the matter was adjourned to Central Local Court on March 24.