Australia’s biggest fraud cases revealed
One faked her death to pocket a hefty life insurance payout, while others siphoned money from vulnerable Aussies. Here are some of the nation’s worst fraudsters.
Some faked their deaths to pocket hefty life insurance payouts, while others siphoned money out of vulnerable Australians’ NDIS packages. These are some of Australia’s biggest fraud cases throughout history.
JOHN DOUGLAS NORMAN
Former Australian Cotton Farmer of the Year John Douglas Norman, defrauded millions from the Queensland government through a water efficiency program.
Norman, 50, was paid around $20 million across six funding agreements made through the government’s Healthy Headwaters Program, designed to assist irrigators in the Queensland Murray-Darling Basin.
Of those payments, $8.7m was found to have been dishonestly paid out after Mr Norman lodged fraudulent invoices.
Brisbane District Court Judge Bernard Porter, sentenced the Queensland farmer to 9.5 years in jail, with parole eligibility set at June 2028 with time served.
“Mr Norman engaged in a wide ranging fraud over an extended period of some five years,” Judge Porter said.
“He involved his farming contractors and employees in this, benefiting only himself and his enterprises at their expense.
“In doing so, he brought an important public water program into disrepute and undermined faith in public administration.”
Norman was named Australian Cotton Farmer of the Year in 2010.
MUGABE RAPHEAL MUBAKE
Mugabe Rapheal Mubake, a South Australian businessman was found guilty of swindling a former federal politician of more than a million dollars.
Mugabe Raphael Mubake dishonestly received more than $1.2m from former Tasmanian Liberal Senator Stephen Parry, who mistakenly thought he was transferring funds to his conveyancer.
Mubake then transferred more than $600,000 from his primary bank account into separate Commonwealth bank accounts, cryptocurrency wallets and to family members.
Despite the Commonwealth bank manager freezing most of the stolen money, more than $200,000 was unable to be recovered.
The business owner was found guilty of multiple charges of fraud and money laundering in the District Court and is set to be sentenced in August.
GEOFF CLARK
Former head of the now defunct Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) Geoff Clark, was found guilty of defrauding his south-west Victorian community of almost $1 million late last year.
After becoming the leader of his local Indigenous community of Framlingham, Clark used his position as administrator of the Framlingham Aboriginal Trust for personal gain.
After pleading not guilty to 38 charges he was ultimately found guilty on 25 counts across three trials, and was sentenced to six years and two months in jail.
One of the charges the Aboriginal leader was found guilty of related to his use of community funds to defend himself in court proceedings that alleged Clark had led two pack rapes against Carol Anne Stingel in 2007.
A jury also found him guilty of using community funds to pay rates and utilities bills on his own properties, and stealing the rent on a trust-owned property.
TIKTOK GST FRAUDSTERS
Over 150 ATO staff were investigated for their involvement in a sophisticated GST fraud scheme that was especially promoted on TikTok – totalling over $2 billion in scammed funds.
The scam centred around videos detailing how people could claim more money through GST refunds, which spread like wildfire on social media platforms.
The videos – which first appeared from mid 2021 – advised people to obtain an Australian Business Number and then use their MyGov account to apply for GST refunds on fake expenses.
The auditor-general’s report said scammers who followed the video tutorials tried to claim between $38,900 and $2.4 million.
An estimated 57,00 people attempted to claim the false refund – among them 150 supposed ATO staff, though it was later revealed many did not work for the tax office at the time of the scam.
The ATO later revealed action had been taken against 12 people who were substantiated with committing fraud in their roles within the tax office under Operation Protego.
One of the workers, Brisbane woman Paraskevi Vula Danassis, obtained $94,000 in refunds for a pretend cleaning business.
ATO accountant Gaya Ranasinghe of Adelaide was found guilty of three counts of obtaining a financial advantage by deception. She defrauded $16,000.
Hawa Akbar – who falsely claimed nearly $50,000 – was convicted of one count of obtaining a financial advantage by deception.
Baby Dee Zearwie, 25, pleaded guilty to two counts of obtaining a financial advantage by deception in Melbourne’s County Court.
Zearwie was 21 when she used the scam to collect a $17,572 return before allegedly luring four other people into the scheme.
The total losses to taxpayers from false Business Activity (BAS) statements linked to Zearwie was $87,649.60.
It is not suggested that any of the ATO workers used inside knowledge of the system to commit or spread the fraud.
BEN JAYAWEERA
The former director of a Brisbane financial services company was jailed for 12 years after swindling almost $6m from 12 different clients over the course of 2 years.
In August of last year the financial advisor was found guilty of 28 counts of fraud after he appealed a previous 2019 conviction which was quashed by the Queensland court of appeal in 2021.
He instructed clients to invest in the Australian Diversified Sector Investment Fund (ADSIF) which he claimed held assets in aquaculture, agriculture, property and cash but in fact only held loans to his private corporate entities which held assets in South Australian abalone farming.
He also encouraged clients to establish self managed superannuation funds which he would syphon funds from without the holder’s knowledge or consent.
No returns were available for investors as the only asset held in the ADSIF, the abalone farm, was wound up by receivers and liquidators.
MONIKA SINGH
Monika Singh, 42, a former National Australia Bank (NAB) employee conspired with two others to defraud the bank of $21m.
The NAB senior associate, the ringleader of the plot, was sentenced alongside former mortgage broker Davendar Deo and IT consultant Srinivas Naidu Chamkuri to three years behind bars in January of this year.
The trio were convicted of 19 fraud-related charges, after a jury accepted they had conspired to use blank internal bank vouchers to cheat the bank out of a combined $21m.
The plot was foiled by NAB staff who prevented the funds from being transferred.
Singh had previously been charged with a fraud offence in Queensland in 2006, just five years after she migrated to Australia from Fiji, however no conviction was recorded.
PAUL TILBURY
The disability support worker pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars from NDIS users, funding lavish meals, jewellery purchases and travel with the stolen funds.
Paul Kevin Tilbury, 58, made false claims, duplicated claims or inflated working hours for 19 different clients over a two year period, falsely claiming more than $400,000.
Tilbury’s clients, who suffered from a range of conditions including autism, cerebral palsy, intellectual disabilities, vision impairments and acquired brain injuries, often did not receive care they were entitled to.
South Australian District Court Judge Paul Muscat, sentenced Tilbury earlier this year to serve at least one year and nine months, before his release on a two-year good behaviour bond.
KAREN MAREE SALKILLD
The 43-year old received more than $700,000 after faking her own death to claim a life insurance payout.
Karen Maree Salikilld, claimed she died in a car accident in Broome in December 2023, providing a death certificate, funeral documentation and a letter from the coroner’s court to insurance company, Insuranceline.
The company then paid out more than $718,000 to the mother of two, which she then used to make payments to business creditors and herself worth $179,000.
Salkilld had previously been paid out $500,000 from a life insurance policy after the death of her first partner and father of her children.
Late last year she was jailed for three years with a parole period of 18 months.
ADAM CRANSTON
The son of a former deputy tax commissioner was jailed in 2023 for his role in the Pluto’s payroll tax fraud that siphoned more than $105m from the Australian Tax Office.
Adam Cranston, son of former deputy taxation commissioner Michael Cranston — who was cleared of any wrongdoing in 2019 — used Pluto’s Payroll and a web of its second-tier companies to rip off taxpayers.
A joint operation between the AFP and the ATO has resulted in 15 people being sentenced over the $105m fraud.
DANIEL FAROOK ALI
The Gold Coast financial trader stole more than $770,000 to fund property purchases and a luxury car for his girlfriend before fleeing the country.
Daniel Farook Ali, 54, persuaded investors to transfer money off of claims of previous success but instead used the funds to pay deposits on a NSW and Queensland property, school fees and a $120,000 BMW for his girlfriend.
After being banned from engaging in financial services by ASIC in 2017, he left Australia, however was extradited from Poland in 2021 and arrested following an ASIC investigation.
He was sentenced in Brisbane District Court in 2024 to seven years and three months after pleading guilty to five counts of fraud.
MELISSA CADDICK
Sydney businesswoman Melissa Caddick vanished hours after federal investigators raided her $6-million Dover Heights home as part of an investigation into the misappropriation of clients’ funds.
About $20 million from 60 clients’ funds passed through Ms Caddick’s accounts between January 2018 and September 2020.
She had a lavish lifestyle with funds used to pay for overseas trips, high-end fashion, jewelry and cars.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) began investigating the 49-year-old after a tip-off that she was using someone else’s financial services licence.
Caddick has never been found, but her partially decomposed foot washed ashore months later.
ALAN BOND
The late Alan Bond was one of Australia’s most colourful entrepreneurs during his high-flying days in the 1980s.
But it all came crashing down when Bond, who built and lost an international brewing, media and property empire, was declared bankrupt in 1992.
In the same year he was jailed after being found guilty of charges arising from the collapse of Rothwells Bank.
He won a retrial, was released from prison and acquitted in 1992.
He was later jailed in 1996 over the purchase of the Manet masterpiece La Promenade.
In 1997, he received a further jail term after pleading guilty to using his controlling interest in Bell Resources to siphon $1.2 billion into his Bond Corporation.
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Originally published as Australia’s biggest fraud cases revealed
