How one man ended up with 1300 traffic infringements

More than 1300 traffic ­infringements, parking tickets and toll fees were transferred to one man in a massive rort, which saw Abdullah Chechen jailed for more than three years.

More than 1300 traffic ­infringements, parking tickets and toll fees were transferred to one man in a massive rort.

Police have warned drivers against lying to avoid responsibility for their offences, as ­hundreds did in a scam run by Broadmeadows man Abdullah Chechen.

He was recently sentenced to three years and six months in jail for masterminding it.

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Chechen used a series of fake names and false dates of birth to amass a stack of dodgy driving permits.

He then went about taking cash payments from people who nominated his bogus identities or company, Golden Plains Homes, as the true driver or owner of the vehicle fined or charged tolls. More than $260,000 in fines and charges were diverted to Chechen or his aliases.

Of that, $70,000 was lost to authorities.

Police have warned drivers against lying to avoid responsibility for their offences.

The Melbourne County Court was told the traffic camera office found an unusually high number of offences in which Xui Liang Zhang was nominated as the driver.

Investigators later established this was a name used by Chechen and nominated for $94,000 in fines and penalties and many demerit points. There were more than 1300 false nominations, many by the same firms and individuals.

Crime Statistics Agency ­figures show there have been 89 people charged in the past five years for such offences.

It is unclear how many ­relate to organised rackets or ordinary people falsely transferring responsibility for their offences to friends or family as their demerit points mount.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman said the force took such offending seriously. “It avoids the detection of the ­actual drivers who commit the traffic offences, allowing them to continue to drive on Victoria roads where they should otherwise be penalised, have their licence suspended or ­cancelled,” she said.

VicRoads director of registration and licensing services Glen Madeira said the organisation worked closely with police to weed out identity and demerit-point fraud.

“Our demerit point system complements fines as a road safety measure,” he said.

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