NAMED AND SHAMED: 6 of the Territory’s worst fraudsters
FROM a Neighbourhood Watch volunteer, to an accountant, to a travel agent with a big secret — these are the Territory fraudsters who landed themselves in court for it. Find out WHO MAKES THE LIST
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FROM a Neighbourhood Watch volunteer, to an accountant, to a travel agent with a big secret — these are the Territory fraudsters who fell victim to greed and landed themselves in court for it.
1. DES FONG: Disgraced accountant sent to prison for defrauding former client
FORMER accountant and roundabout enthusiast Des Fong was sentenced in February to four years and six months jail, suspended after 18 months. He pleaded guilty to one count of ‘stealing in action’ after rorting $400,000 from one of his clients last year.
The court heard Fong had been engaged as a middle man in the sale of Darwin-based NT Welding to a Perth company for $1.3 million for the purpose of settling tax and other debts.
But Fong nominated his own bank account for the money to be deposited in and then withdrew the stolen cash to pay down his own debts and provide cash for him and his wife.
In sentencing, Justice Stephen Southwood said while such a serious betrayal would usually attract a lengthy prison sentence and non-parole period, the “truly exceptional” circumstances of his six-year-old son’s severe disability warranted mercy.
Justice Southwood said while the boy’s long-term prospects were unclear, a risk of “permanent deterioration” in the absence of his father could cause “extreme hardship” for his family and should be taken into account by the court.
However, Fong was slapped with another six weeks prison in June — to be served alongside his current sentence — after pleading guilty to failing to turn up to a meeting with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
He is due to be released from prison in April next year.
2. XANA KAMITSIS: Travel agent turned fraudster who had ‘intimate’ relationship with former NT Police Commissioner John McRoberts
ONE of the NT’s most high-profile fraudsters, Xana Kamitsis, was found guilty by a jury in 2015 of 20 counts of fraud for rorting an NT Health Department scheme, which gave travel concessions to pensioners, while working as a travel agent in Darwin.
Kamitsis, who admitted during her trial that she had been in an “intimate” relationship with former NT police commissioner John McRoberts, was also found guilty of corruptly giving benefits to Paul Mossman, the former chief-of-staff to NT MLA Bess Price.
The fraud committed by Kamitsis totalled almost $124,000.
She was sentenced in December 2015 to three years and 11 months jail, suspended after serving 18 months imprisonment.
However, after less than a year behind bars she successfully applied to be released into home detention.
The court heard that $1000 of the money was transferred into McRoberts’ tripfile, which was used to book flights, Park Hyatt Melbourne accommodation, limousine and car hire.
McRoberts was found guilty of attempting to pevert the course of justice for trying to “frustrate” or “deflect” the fraud investigation into Kamatsis.
3. RITA MOUGROS: Former Supreme Court security guard and Neighbour Watch volunteer rorted more than $17,000 from the Department of Territory Families
A WOMAN who once spent her life keeping an eye out for crime was busted forging the signatures of her parents to pocket their NT Government pensions years after they had moved back to Greece.
She was convicted in 2018 of falsely claiming the benefits from an NT Government pensioners’ scheme for eight years after her mother left Darwin and moved back to Greece.
Mougros also claimed the benefits in her father’s name for four years, starting in 2013, despite him having left Australia in 2003.
In 2017, she forged each of her parents’ signatures on government paperwork, but her fraud unravelled when she tried to fix an error she made in the falsified paperwork that meant she was not being paid both lots of benefits.
She was sentenced to six months’ jail, fully suspended.
Her offending meant she was stripped of her security guard licence, and she was denied the chance to apply for a new one in 2019 by NTCAT.
Tribunal members Andrew Macrides and Mark O’Reilly said Mougros’s “positive contribution” to the community through Neighbourhood Watch did not mean she was suitable to be trusted with working as a security guard.
Mougros told the NT News in 2015 that preventing crime in your neighbourhood was “just using your brain and a lot of common sense”.
4. WARWICK BRYANT: Former surveying company manager rorted more than $220,000 from employer
BRYANT, 45, will spend at least two and a half years in jail after being convited of defrauding the whopping sum from Fyfe, the national surveying company for which he managed the Darwin office between February 2015 and September 2017.
He pleaded guilty to three counts of obtaining benefit by deception last October after admitting to the scheme in which he siphoned off client payments into his own bank account.
The court heard Bryant deleted billing information relating to 134 Fyfe Solutions projects and instructed clients to pay their invoices into his own account instead.
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Justice Stephen Southwood said a victim impact statement submitted to the court revealed other management staff at the company spent more than $100,000 in man hours dealing with Bryant’s offending following his sacking in 2017.
Fyfe Solutions managing director Mark Daymon earlier testified that Bryant had shown no remorse for his crimes and continued to harass his staff after taking a job with a rival company with offices in the same building.
In setting a head sentence of five years, with a non-parole period of two years and six months, Justice Southwood said there was no other apparent explanation for the fraud other than greed.
“No real explanation has been provided in this case as to what use was made of the money,” he said.
Fyfe sought restitution for the stolen money but Bryant’s lawyer, Peter Maley, said he was not in a position to pay.
5. TIMOTHY SCHWAB: Builder turned fraudster jailed for defrauding more than $200,000 from the NT taxpayer
THE builder was sentenced to four years’ jail, suspended after 18 months served, after pleading guilty to swindling $213,000 from the NT Government’s Indigenous Employment Provisional Sum.
He pleaded guilty to rorting the scheme on 56 occasions, for amounts between $143 and $32,067.
In sentencing, Justice Hiley said it was surprising fraudsters had not got the message they would serve hefty jail sentences for rorts against the taxpayer, following blanket publicity of cases such as that of corrupt travel agent Xana Kamitsis.
“A lot of members of the public in the Northern Territory would have been fully aware of the circumstances of Kamitsis having committed similar fraud in relation to the (NT Government) travel scheme,” Justice Hiley said.
Justice Hiley said there was little explanation for Schwab’s offending “other than greed”.
“There is no suggestion that you were in dire financial straits or need.”
Schwab was the manager of suburban building firm Timber and Steel Constructions.
Crown Prosecutor David Morters said Justice Hiley would conclude Scwab’s lifestyle, which included his almost $900,000 house and the Ford Mustang he drove, was bankrolled “to an extent, from the money which he has stolen from the Northern Territory community”
6. MICHAEL DEPOLD: Former pet shop manager busted putting refunds into his own account
FORMER area manager of Petstock, Michael Depold, was busted refunding customer purchases into his own account totalling a taking of almost $8,000.
Michael Depold pleaded guilty in Darwin Local Court to obtaining benefit by deception during his time working as an area manger for the franchise.
The court heard Depold made 19 separate fraudulent transactions between August 2017 and September 2018 at the store, which involved Depold refunding the cost of a customer’s purchase into an account in his name.
The fraudulent transactions totalled $7703.
Depold’s conduct was eventually discovered after an internal audit by Petstock’s loss prevention team found discrepancies with his use of the refund system.
A representative from the company alerted police.
The court heard staff members of the store also tried to question Depold after the audit, at which point he resigned and refused to co-operate with an internal investigation.
Depold was arrested and questioned by police in November last year but he refused to explain his conduct. He was later charged and then released on bail.
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He was sentenced to eight months home detention, given a two-year good behaviour bond and ordered to pay back Petstock Berrimah.
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