Former Queensland Member of Parliament Fraud - Essay Example

UTОRIАL РАРЕR 2 Student’s Name: Course Code: Tutor’s Name: Date of Submission Former Queensland Member of Parliament fraud Scott Driscoll, a former MP was involved in fraudulent activities with commissions and a lobby group he used to run (Dibben, 2016). The MP was involved in an expected money type of scam. This is a type of fraud where a company or an individual receives some communication from some unknown party who pretend to solve some issues or even pursue some transaction which will benefit the contributor of the money but eventually the contributor does not benefit. According to Kos (2017), the Member of Parliament received a considerable amount of money pretending to use his position as a member of parliament to solve some business’s problems but later failed to accomplish the assignment. Instead the MP used the money for his personal gain. He defrauded retail traders in Queensland as well as the association of shopkeepers’ money which amounted to $180,000 (Kos, 2017). This was after falsifying minutes as well as seeking secret commissions from two major supermarket chains. Dibben (2016) say that the group paid some money amounting to $110,000 with an aim of fighting trading hours which had been extended. The money was taken by the MP who used some as a house deposit (Kos, 2017). With the use of his position, Driscoll tried to solicit about $250,000 from Woolworths and Coles (Dibben, 2016). This was to be paid for the group’s stance regarding trading hours to be changed. After some negotiations the supermarkets declined to pay the money. The MP also acquired $60,000 as a result of property sale of QRTSA (Dibben, 2016). These fraud cases happened sometimes between 2012 and 2013 when the MP resigned from parliament citing poor health as the reason. They were revealed at Brisbane District Court during a court hearing on March 2017 (Kos, 2017). This was after retail traders in Queensland as well as the association of shopkeepers in Australia reporting the case to the Australian police. The former Member of Parliament representing Redcliffe pleaded guilty on fifteen counts of fraud on 25th November 2016 (Kos, 2016). It was not clear how the Member of Parliament spent the money but some were paid to his political party in 2012 and the other amount was spent for personal expenses (Kos, 2017). There have been some delays in sentencing the accused ex Member of Parliament due to his health conditions. His lawyer, Kylie Hillard had asked the judge to impose a jail term of four and a half years and suspend the sentence due to his client’s mental as well as physical health problems on 6th march 2017 (Kos, 2017). Driscoll was to be sentenced on Friday 10th march 2017 (Kos, 2017). The Member of Parliament was sentenced for six years in jail and was declared not eligible to hold any public office. Victorian tourist attractions fraud This is a fraud case that involved the use of stolen credit cards by scammers. They used the credit card to buy tickets to tourist attractions and later sell them at a lower cost through social networking sites from china (Baker and McKenzie, 2017). This is due to the fact that china has become market from tourists’ attractions in Australia. This is an online scam due to the fact that it uses the internet to fraud or obtains money illegally. It can also be classified as a payment fraud since the scammers access credit cards from their owners illegally. According to Clure (2017), WeChat, a social media platform in china has been used by these fraudsters therefore making the scam an online one. Baker and McKenzie, (2017) Say that the fraudsters usually post tickets that are discounted or cheap on WeChat. They accept the payment by buyers and keep the money. The perpetrators will go ahead and buy tickets that are legitimate with the use of credit cards that are stolen which they later send to the customer on WeChat (Clure, 2017). The owner of the stolen credit card will later report theft to his bank seeking to be refunded. This will result to the tour operators refunding the money and end up offering services which have not been paid for (Clure, 2017). Nine tourists’ operator firms have confirmed losing a total of $400,000 (Baker and McKenzie, 2017). This includes Eureka SkyDeck which has confirmed refunding $22,000 worth of tickets (Baker and McKenzie, 2017). This has just been estimations but the perpetrators have scammed these firm millions of dollars (Clure, 2017). Sovereign Hill tour operators have also confirmed losing some undisclosed amount of money from the scammers. Mark Stone, the CEO of Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has confirmed that these frauds started at around February 2017 and it is continually affecting tourism operators in Australia greatly (Clure, 2017). The tour operators have not been able to take any action to the scammers since it is hard to get them. They have reported the matter to the relevant authorities such as Victorian police but the fraudsters have not been arrested. The reasons for the failure of their arrest and prosecution have been attributed to the huge Chinese online ticket market. According to Baker and McKenzie (2017), this makes it hard for the tourist operator firms to keep across all of it and therefore it becomes a hard crime to prevent other than reporting the matter to the police. Recently, police have traced one suspected scammer in Australia and an alert have been made to border officials to prevent the suspect from leaving the country (Clure, 2017). The suspect’s bank accounts in Australia have also been made to freeze in an attempt to uncover other suspects as well as prevent the scam to continue (Clure, 2017). Canberra lawyer Stephen Stubbs fraud Stephen Raymond Stubbs is a former Canberra lawyer who was representing a client by the name Alexander Duffy (Gorrey, 2017). Duffy was accused of murder conspiracy and his mother hired Stephen to represent him. The lawyer received $25,000 from Ann Duffy the accused’s mother in 2009 (Gorrey, 2017). After receiving the amount, the lawyer went ahead and received an additional $4000 from the Legal Aid Office making a total of $29,000 (Byrne, 2017). This is a department in Australia that provides representation to disadvantages citizens and the vulnerable ones. According to Byrne (2017), it is a crime in Australia for a lawyer to obtain any amount of money from a client if the client has been granted legal assistance. This qualifies to be a payment type of scam since the lawyer was paid some money against the law. Due to these transactions Stubbs was found guilty of dishonesty and fraud of fourteen counts (Gorrey, 2017). The scam crime was as a result of obtaining money illegally from both parties that is the accused’s mother and the Legal Aid Office. The scam was uncovered when a certain manager was appointed to work where Stubbs was practicing. The manager was doing his work as usual as he came to know that the lawyer Stubbs was involved in fraud (Gorrey, 2017). After some investigations the manager came to know that the accused’s mother had paid the lawyer for his son’s representations in court proceedings (Byrne 2017). The manager was aware of the money that was granted as aid to the accused and this made the lawyer to be prosecuted. The accused’s mother disclosed paying the money directly to the lawyer’s account without the knowledge that there was some aid on the same (Gorrey, 2017). The mother was scammed due to lack of information regarding matters concerning the court. She admitted that she struggled to raise the amount to the extent of failing to repair her house which was almost falling by the time of the lawyer’s prosecution (Byrne 2017). Stubbs who was representing himself during the trial failed to attend the court proceedings one day claiming he was ill. The judge noted the lawyer’s illness in time of making his judgment which included heart problems. There was evidence that the lawyer was also involved in dishonesty claims in the 1970s and had failed to reform (Byrne 2017). When sentencing, the judge remarked that the lawyer had made some outrageous allegations against his clients and this resulted to the reported fraud. Gorrey (2017) says that due to these facts the lawyer was sentenced three years and one month in jail for accepting the $29,000 illegally. The sentence will be served with a one year sentence behind bars and the remaining two years and one month will rest suspended upon entering a good behavior order (Gorrey, 2017). Sydney woman accused of defrauding employer Lauren Reddie is a woman in Sydney who was accused of defrauding her employer more than $ 1 million between 2014 march and 2016 march (Ford, 2016). The woman was accused of processing refunds which are false through George Weston Foods Company which is her employer. She used to transfer the money into some bank accounts that are operated by her fiancé from Britain and herself (The Australian, April 2016). This makes the scam an identity as well as payment fraud since she personified her bank accounts and those of her fiancé without the knowledge of her employer. According to Ford (2016), the documents that were in the court had information that the largest payment was amounting to $ 264, 626 just before Christmas in 2015. Later at the beginning of 2016, the woman transferred another $ 152, 300. The total payments done at the entire period amounted to $ 1.3 million (Ford, 2016). Investigations were started on the month of March 2016 (The Australian, April 2016). This was after some of the woman’s colleagues in George Weston Foods Company became suspicious of some conspicuous transactions. They took the initiative of notifying the senior management of the company for a step to be taken. According to The Australian (April 2016), the company later reported the matter to the Fraud and Cybercrime Squad. This is a department that deals with investigating as well as prosecuting suspects of scam (Ford, 2016). The company has been helping the team in conducting investigations which may lead to the unearthing of the fraud. The couple’s accounts’ have also been investigated and there was some truth as there were deposits that took place during the stipulated time that was suspicious. The biggest deposit was found to be $ 264, 626 with others as less as even $ 1, 000 but the total amount was found to be more than $ 1 million within a period of two years (Ford, 2016). The two suspects were arrested by the police and on 8th March 2016; they faced the court for the first time at Sydney’s Downing Centre (The Australian, April 2016). The woman was charged with sixty five charges of fraud and fourteen charges for money laundering. Her fiancé the thirty two years old Scott Linnen was also charged with fourteen charges of laundering money. They were released on bail and were living in their Coogee home after their passports were confiscated by the police to prevent them from travelling out of the country. The two were also prevented from making any communication with the employees of George Weston Foods Company with the sole purpose of preventing them to interfere with any evidence that may be available in the company (The Australian, April 2016). It is not clear from the available literature on how the fraudsters were charged or their sentence by the court of law (Ford, 2016). However the investigations are still underway by the police as well as Fraud and Cybercrime Squad team with assistance from the company where the woman was working. References Baker, R. and McKenzie, N. (2017, April 6). Top Australian tourist sites hit by stolen credit card scam. The Age, Retrieved from, http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/top-australian-touris Byrne, E. (2017, March 2). Canberra lawyer Stephen Stubbs jailed after billing client's mother $25,000 in Legal Aid case. ABC news, retrieved from, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-02 Clure, E. (2017, April 6). Credit card scam costs Victorian tourism operators $400k, likely 'tip of the iceberg. ABC News, retrieved from, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-06/victoria Dibben, K. (2016, November 25). Scott Driscoll pleads guilty to fraud. The advertiser, retrieved from, http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/scott-driscoll-pleads-guilty-to-fraud/news- Ford, M. (2016 April 15). Sydney woman accused of defrauding employer of $1.3 million. ABC news, retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-15/sydney-woman-faces-court-on-65- Gorrey, M. (2017, March 2). Canberra lawyer Stephen Stubbs sent to jail for 'calculated' legal fees fraud. The Canberra Times, retrieved from, http://www.canberratimes.com.au/ac Kos, A. (2017, March 10). Scott Driscoll, former Queensland MP, sentenced to six years' jail for fraudulent commissions. ABC news, retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-10/sc Sydney woman accused of stealing $1.3m. (2016, April 14). The Australian. Retrieved May 6, 2017, from http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/sydney-woman-accused-of-steali Read More