‘Ghost cars', a missing $10 million and the question: victim or fraudster?
Was An Chen part of a group of alleged swindlers, helping to clear $3.8 million worth of fraudulently obtained car loans? Or was the 25-year-old a victim of the same group, yet another innocent person duped by scammers in pursuit of millions of dollars?
This is the question that will need to be answered by the courts, after Chen became the sixth person charged by detectives looking at an alleged luxury car fraud racket.
Police say the group took over $10 million worth of loans from a western Sydney car financing group in the names of at least 33 individuals. The only problem? These individuals hadn't taken out car loans and never saw the dozens of Teslas or Mercedes-Benzes that were bought using their stolen identity documents.
The money from the so-called 'ghost car' loans was then laundered by members of the syndicate, police say.
The $10 million remains unrecovered.
An employee of the financing group, and Chen, a 25-year-old Chinese national in Australia on a protection visa and with no local family, are among the half a dozen charged over the alleged fraud.
Over a nine-month period in 2023, a company bank account allegedly received a total of $3.8 million across 15 transactions worth hundreds of thousands of dollars each. Police documents tendered to the court claim Chen was the sole signatory on the bank account and is the sole director of the company.
He now faces 15 counts of recklessly dealing with the proceeds of crime.
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