Police in Sydney, Australia, arrested a woman who posed as a fortune teller and convinced people to take out loans, even for very large amounts, assuring them that they would soon meet rich people who would be willing to repay them. Meanwhile, he kept some of the money for himself. Her daughter, who police say was an accomplice, was also arrested: the fraud earned the two women more than 70 million Australian dollars (about 40 million euros).
The two women are 53 and 25 years old respectively and come from Vietnam. According to police, the mother, Anya Phan, arrived in Australia in 2001 and is not known to have worked legally since then. He receives disability benefits. When they were arrested on Wednesday, they were in a luxury apartment in Dover Heights, a wealthy neighborhood in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, where they were paying a mortgage of 56 thousand dollars a month (more than 30 thousand euros). In the apartment police confiscated documents, phones and other items, but also several luxury bags, 40 gram gold bars with an estimated value of 10 thousand Australian dollars (about 5 thousand euros) and chips equivalent to 3,700 euros from the casino where Phan was a member.
Investigations revealed that the two women primarily targeted people from Sydney’s Vietnamese community, who were often in financial difficulties. As an upstanding member of society, Phan was able to convince them through card reading. According to police, the two women are still part of a larger organization, which was discovered in early 2024 in an investigation that has resulted in 17 arrests; the group allegedly used fake identities to take out loans by pretending to want to buy a car, then disappeared.
Phan was charged with 39 felonies, and denied bail; her daughter is accused of seven felonies, will be released on bail and must appear in court in January.
