Siblings charged: Family ‘in web of NDIS lies and deceit’

Police have charged multiple members of a Western Sydney family over an alleged multimillion dollar NDIS fraud that involved webs of fake companies and “dummy directors”.

Police have charged multiple members of a Western Sydney family over an alleged multimillion dollar NDIS fraud that involved webs of fake companies and “dummy directors”.

The alleged fraud was only uncovered, police say, after two siblings violently turned on one of their elderly accused co-conspirators.

With her white Porsche, expensive clothes and home, Wafaa Al Shamari always looks a million dollars – but she is accused of playing a central role in creating fake care companies to allegedly bill $2m to the NDIS.

Prosecutors allege the overnight companies, with benign names like Angel and Guardian Care, provided no services but collected on six-figure invoices before any red flags were raised.

Wafaa and her childhood friend, Nada Hamze, had been arrested in May 2021, two days after they detained Alija “Alan” Magjarraj in Hamze’s home on 24 May 2021.

Wafaa Al Shamari walks into the Parramatta courts before being found guilty of kidnapping Alan Magjarraj. Picture: John Grainger

Hamze would plead guilty on the first day of her trial in the NSW District Court in November, while Wafaa Al Shamari and her brother, Adel, were found guilty by a jury of detaining Magjarraj.

No other members of the Al Shamari family were accused of any wrong doing in relation to the abduction.

An Australian Federal Police and NDIS strike force approached NSW Police, months after the abduction arrests, asking for the kidnappers’ phone data.

A NSW Supreme Court document, obtained by The Daily Telegraph alleges the phones contained evidence that the Al Shamari siblings had siphoned $2m from the NDIS. Bizarrely their elderly abduction victim, Magjarraj, is also alleged as being involved in the NDIS scheme and is now charged with conspiracy to commit fraud.

Two more Al Shamari siblings, Khaled and Mona aka Muna El Shreffy, are also named in the NDIS court documents and are charged.

Adel Al Shamari has one of his last cigarettes outside prison before being found guilty of kidnapping Magjarraj in May 2021. Picture: John Grainger

Commonwealth prosecutors allege, in the document, the group was registering or buying up business names and registering them with the NDIS as care companies.

The fact sheet alleges people were signed on as “dummy directors” of companies with names like Guardian Care, Angel Care, ICare and Future Founders.

Some dummy directors, according to the court document, say they were not aware they held any positions.

Hamze, according to the document, told investigators she was paid $5000 a month to have one of the companies registered in her name.

“I pay Nada 5K a month for having the company under her name and withdrawing money for us so that’s 1250 every month from each one of us has to be paid to Nada per month,” Wafaa texted her siblings in January 2021, the document alleges.

Hamze is not charged as part of the NDIS allegations.

The Al Shamaris allegedly billed the NDIS for 24 patients until payment locks hit their companies, the document says.

“Each time a payment lock was implemented against a particular entity, the conspirators would move the participants to the new company which was registered with the NDIS to perpetuate the fraud,” the document reads.

Officers from the strike force, Operation Pyxis, also charged the father of the Al Shamari siblings, Kareem, with dealing with the proceeds of crime.

Investigators allege almost $184,000 worth of claims were paid out by the NDIS against his name in just four months and further allege Kareem received $69,000 as part of the scheme.

“And you know the whole family is surviving on NDIS,” Mona allegedly texted Wafaa in April 2021, according to the court document.

“It’s f...ing risky and not worth it,” Wafaa allegedly wrote to her siblings after a scammer was caught, the court document claims.

The federal task force made arrests in June 2022 as it raided the plush Western Sydney homes of the alleged fraudsters. Photographs and videos from the arrest show bags of cash found in a home and officers with uniforms bearing the NDIS logo picking through documents.

The Supreme Court document states $20,000 cash, handwritten notes about NDIS companies, notes about $360,000 worth of cryptocurrency and a wallet containing almost $45,000 in crypto were seized. Wafaa allegedly asked to contact a friend after her arrest — a cryptocurrency trader. It’s also alleged Wafaa and Adel Al Shamari, who were both convicted of abducting Magjarraj, threatened another witness after a confrontation and six people were “fearful” of giving statements. The NDIS fraud allegations remain before court.

THE KIDNAP: ‘YOU’LL NEVER SEE YOUR KIDS AGAIN’

Wafaa Al Shamari watched cooly as her brother Adel and their heavily tattooed standover man used fists, blades and threats against their grey and softly-spoken victim — warning he’d be buried out the back of her Western Sydney investment property.

Now The Daily Telegraph can reveal the abduction is alleged to be the final, violent implosion of an alleged scam syndicate run by a Western Sydney family in which authorities claim millions were ripped from the NDIS.

The allegations include a rapidly changing network of shell companies, hush money and fraudulent claims against the disability support system that only ended when the alleged scammers threatened to kill one of their own.

Operation Pyxis, involving the NDIA and AFP, raids the Al Shamari family after allegations of a long-running, $2m scam against the NDIS emerged. Picture: AFP

A Parramatta District Court jury, last Wednesday, found Wafaa and brother Adel Al Shamari guilty of detaining Alija “Alan” Magjarraj for advantage and causing actual bodily harm.

The badly shaken Croatian migrant told police he had been detained by Wafaa and Adel Al Shamari, their friend Nada Hamze and a heavily tattooed man at a home in South Granville in late May 2021.

In his conversations with police Magjarraj curiously told officers his name had been used on companies “he knew nothing about”, court documents would later claim.

Prosecutor Geoff Kidd would tell the jury Magjarraj met with his business partner, Wafaa, and the heavily tattooed Hossein Mirnezami at Stockland Merrylands under the watch of food court cameras.

Magjarraj and Wafaa had been quarrelling over $50,000 which Magjarraj leant to Wafaa for a business deal, the jury would hear.

The details are fuzzy but the jury were told Wafaa’s safe full of money and valuables had gone missing and she suspected Magjarraj.

Instead, the court heard, the three decided to search Wafaa’s South Granville investment property, which was being rented by her friend Nada Hamze.

Once inside Hamze’s Namur Street home, Mr Kidd told the jury, the group turned on Magjarraj.

‘HE WANTED TO CUT MY FINGERS OFF’

“Give us the money or you will never see your kids again,” Mirnezami said.

He’d held something sharp, potentially a pocket knife, against Mr Magjarraj’s neck and blood began dripping out onto his shirt from a small cut.

Al Shamari’s brother, Adel, and sister Muna arrived at the home – then the situation began to spiral, the court heard.

Adel “Adam” Al Shamari, the jury were told, beat Magjarraj with his fists before grabbing the older man’s hand and threatening him with a knife, the court heard.

“He said he wanted to cut my fingers off but Muna stopped him,” Magjarraj told the court through an interpreter.

Magjarraj was forced to hand his phone to Wafaa and Hamze, the court heard, and they took photos of his children.

Eventually Magjarraj was allowed to leave, the court heard.

“You can go now, but if you don’t bring $200,000 tomorrow you will never see your children again – we have their pictures of them now,” one of the captors warned him, the court heard.

He went to police and Wafaa, Adel and Nada Hamze were arrested and charged.

Wafaa denied everything; she said Adel was not at the home, denied he was known as “Adam”, denied she knew Mirnezami and claimed Magjarraj was “a mastermind”.

Cash netted during the Operation Pyxis raids. Picture: AFP

She could only smirk in silence when police revealed covert photographs of her and Mirnezami arriving at Hamze’s in her white Porsche.

The photographs had been taken hours before her arrest.

Judge Siobhan Herbert, at the start of the trial, ruled that the jury could not hear anything an NDIS scheme which had been hinted at throughout pre-trial hearings.

So prosecutors instead simply told the jury Magjarraj had been abducted over money.

“That’s what this whole thing is about – and come hell or high water (the Al Shamaris) are going to get their money,” Crown Prosecutor Geoff Kidd told the jury.

Each day Wafaa and Adel Al Shamari showed up to Parramatta District dressed immaculately as Magjrraj recounted to the jury the impact the abduction had on his life.

His wife told the court it was the only time he had cried in their decades-long marriage.

The Al Shamari siblings’ defiance and denials seemed to abandon them on Wednesday when the jury found them both guilty of detaining Magjarraj with intent to obtain advantage.

Hamze pleaded guilty on the first day of the trial, she is yet to be sentenced.

Mirnezami also pleaded guilty to kidnapping and, just before the trial started, was given a maximum three years prison. Mona Al Shamari, also known by the last name El Shreffy, was not accused of any wrongdoing in relation to the abduction.

The verdicts means alleged sprawling NDIS fraud, that allegedly led everyone to the Namur Street home, can now be revealed.