Jasmine Vella-Arpaci boasted of being ‘excited’ about fleecing elderly of super nest eggs

A woman who was part of a scam that robbed elderly Australians’ super accounts of $3m, leaving them stressed and hopeless, boasted she was “excited” about it.

Jasmine Vella-Arpaci faces a maximum 25 years’ jail on the main charge of dealing with proceeds of crime. Picture: David Crosling

A young woman who stole seniors’ superannuation nest eggs worth $3m boasted that the cyber crime was “fkn awesome” and she was “super happy and excited to be part of it”.

Jasmine Vella-Arpaci, 24, pleaded guilty to her part in an international syndicate that conned cash from “quite elderly” victims’ super and shares after stealing their personal identity documents and details.

Twenty victims had a total $3,075,887.25 snatched from their super in the year-long conspiracy to April 2019, where their accounts were drained of cash moved to new bank accounts controlled by scammers.

A handful of others had $238k in shares stolen.

Older victims were the “ultimate jackpot” for the syndicate, with an elderly couple in their 80s telling the County Court they were left “exhausted and totally confused” after a shares scam stripped them of their retirement savings.

“The stress and sleepless nights it caused us spiralled into reduced physical and mental health, shingles and hopelessness,” they said.

Another woman was a year away from retirement when her “super life savings” of almost half a million dollars was stolen.

The court heard how Vella-Arpaci would conceal her identity while committing her crimes, putting on gloves to protect her DNA when signing for retirees’ life savings, disguising herself by dressing like a real estate agent to pilfer through people’s letterboxes, and refusing to accept calls to avoid being recorded.

Jasmine Vella-Arpaci leaves the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court. Picture: AAP

“I’m not having my voice attached to a multimillion-dollar scheme,” she once said.

The young mother, who called herself a “painter”, was up to her old tricks outside the County Court where she shielded her identity from waiting media by using an umbrella to block cameras, covered her face with sunglasses and a mask, and even hid behind her friend.

She pleaded guilty to three charges including conspiring to defraud eight superannuation firms, conspiring to deal with more than $1m cash that was the proceeds of crime, and conspiring to defraud six trading platforms, between February 2018 and April 2019.

The scam worked by using stolen identity documents and details from the dark web to hack victims’ super and shares accounts and drain them of cash funnelled to new bank accounts in their names.

The syndicate had new debit cards for the bank accounts posted to false addresses, where Vella-Arpaci stole them from letterboxes before express-posting them to a co-conspirator in Hong Kong.

The cards were used overseas to buy diamonds, gold, watches and tech before being transferred into cryptocurrency and sent back to Vella-Arpaci.

She also set up fake super fund advertisements on Google, where unsuspecting victims would enter their login details on bogus websites only to be stolen by the syndicate.

“Damn, LMAO (laughing my arse off) that’s nuts,” a co-offender wrote to Vella-Arpaci after she explained the scam.

“Crazy set-up I know,” she replied, later going on to say: “Yeah it’s pretty fkn awesome, I’m super happy and excited to be a part of it.”

Her crimes came to an end when she was arrested by Australian Federal Police officers at Melbourne Airport after returning from a holiday to Turkey, on April 30, 2019.

Her four co-offenders — some believed to be living in Hong Kong and the USA – have never been arrested.

Vella-Arpaci faces a maximum 25 years’ jail on the main charge of dealing with proceeds of crime.

She will return to court for a continuation of the plea hearing before Judge Fiona Todd on November 30.