Heartless NDIS con artists stole for money and power

The greed and power struggles within a money-hungry western Sydney family who callously conned people with disabilities can now be revealed.

The greed and power struggles within a money-hungry western Sydney family who callously conned people with disabilities can now be revealed.

“You will be surprised how much you can charge for cutting grass,” one wrote to another, revealed in agreed facts tendered to the NSW District Court.

The six family members — led by Alaedine ‘Alan’ Rifai and his partner Amal Hilmi who are now behind bars — lodged $1.5 million worth of fraudulent National Disability Scheme (NDIS) claims between September 2017 and March 2018.

Alhassane Hilmi pictured leaving Parramatta District Court in April this year.

Sumaiah Al Shakhshir turns her back on cameras at court in April.

The syndicate made fake claims pretending they were providing services such as cleaning and transport to more than 70 disabled Australians, causing them to lose access to money for their health needs.

Hilmi’s two younger brothers — Alhassane ‘Hassan’ and Mostafa ‘Mus’ were charged — along with their partners Sumaiah ‘Sumia’ Al Shakhshir and Michelle Ross, with Michelle the last to be sentenced on Monday.

The agreed facts show Hassan instructed his wife via text message to start making false requests on behalf of people with disabilities at the start of 2018.

He said: “I just took some of (a NDIS customer’s) maintenance money literally right now”.

His wife Hassan responded: “Why did you take money from her (smiley face).”

Alan Rifai is arrested by Australian Federal Police in May 2019.

“Cause my wife can spend it better than she can (smiley face). Baby what you doing. Take maintenance money,” Hassan said.

She responded: “From?”

He replied: “Brad, Allan, David (naming people with NDIS plans). There’s sooo much (money)”.

After learning how to rort the system from their sister Amal and her partner Alan, brothers Mus and Hassan spoke of starting their own business, the facts show.

Hassan wrote to Mus: “We gotta start running around for our selfs...we gotta take the lion share”.

Mus responded: “Yeah bro, hundred per cent...You will be surprised how much you can charge for cutting grass.”

Hassan said: “F**k bro...(the federal government) will eventually crack down on this.”

Tensions grew between Hassan and ringleader Alan, which played out in texts between the pair.

A wad of cash seized by the AFP during the raids on the NDIS western Sydney syndicate.

Hassan texted Alan: “Your office is really comfortable. Expensive chairs. You must be making a killing. Mashallah (an Arabic phrase meaning impressive).“

Alan responded: “Maybe join the team instead of playing for the other team. I’ll accept you.”

To which Hassan replied: “I need to be the captain of my team. No hard feelings.”

The family splurged on a Porsche ($83,000), Mercades ($64,000), a Golbourn home ($280,000) a Rolex, a Tag Heuer watch and flights to Morocco.

Obsessed with making money, Alan told Michelle in a message: “I want gold teeth, charge everyone”.

But tensions came to a head when Alan, Amal, Mus and Hassan purchased land on Indonesian island Lombok ($40,000), which they planned to turn into a resort.

A black Gucci handbag seized by AFP during raids on the NDIS syndicate.

Alan told his brother-in-law Hassan in a WhatsApp message on April 16, 2019: “Work out how to end this nicely, either buy me out of the projects or I’ll buy you out, I can’t deal with you any longer.”

At one point, Amal called her sister-in-law Sumia a “sneaky b***h”.

When the syndicate‘s payments were barred by NDIS, Michelle told the group: “We shouldn’t be stressed. No one’s done anything wrong at all. Ya get me.”

Michelle told Sumia: “I always said, never mix business and family, it never ends well.”

Losing hope, Alan texted his wife realising they could not afford to fund the Lombok investment.

“Babe we need like $500k...we thought money would roll in. But it isn’t,” he conceded.

A luxury car seized from Alan.

Amal responded: “We thought we were millionaires.”

The day before Michelle was arrested, she planned to start a new business with her sister rorting the system, telling her: “If all goes well, (we should) start next week.”

On Monday, Ross was sentenced to a two-year prison term, to be served in the community after pleading guilty to providing false or misleading information.

In April, both Hassan and Mus were sentenced to three years in prison and Sumia was sentenced to two years in prison, to be served in the community.

They each pleaded guilty to dealing with property reasonably suspected to be proceeds of crime.

Alan Rifai.

Alan and Amal received the harshest penalties after pleading guilty to obtaining a gain and dealing with property reasonably suspected to be proceeds of crime.

They were both sentenced to four years and nine months in prison, with a non parole period of three years for Alan, and two years and nine months for Amal.

NDIS spokesman Mel Woodburn said the organisation had a “zero tolerance” policy for fraud.

“Our priority is protecting participants and ensuring they can access the disability supports they need,” Ms Woodburn said.

“Participants, families and carers should have full confidence that the agency is preventing, detecting, and responding to this type of criminal behaviour.”

In July, NDIS Minister Linda Reynolds announced an extension of the NDIS Fraud Taskforce to deal with similar matters.