Australia’s online Bonnie and Clyde make millions from scams while others suffer
Australia’s answer to Bonnie and Clyde (in the digital world at least) have been taken into custody after police discovered the scam artists had made millions in online fraud.
A Current Affair reports Angela Greer and her boyfriend Michael Tozer scammed close to $2 million as part of an elaborate scam. And the strangest part of the whole case? Greer managed to do so, without her husband suspecting a thing.
“I've never seen a couple so obsessed by money,” Detective Sergeant Brad McLeish, who uncovered the fraud, said.
“Tozer created thousands of fake accounts on PayPal, eBay and Gumtree, which he used to buy and sell non-existent goods.
“Towards the end of this crime spree they started buying scores of Australia Post Load&Go cards.
“Someone at the post office noticed and called us. Then we traced them to a hotel.”
The couple were arrested at the Shangri-La Hotel in Cairns where they’d been living for the last five months or so, and when police raided the hotel they found dozens of bank cards, cupboards full of luxury items and $3,000 in cash.
Greer and Tozer refused to answer questions and were taken into custody, and after months of sleuthing detectives were able to follow the paper trail proving the fraud.
Tozer had opened more than 700 banks accounts to cover up the fraud.
“From all those bank accounts you could just see PayPal money pouring into them,” Det. Sgt McLeish said.
“What’s staggering about this story is that the whole time Angela Greer was living this fantasy life funded by other people’s money, she was married to a disabled man in Bendigo.”
The man, who is confined to a wheelchair, had reportedly been married to Greer for 22 years.
“He believed his wife was living and working on the Gold Coast as a publicist,” Det Sgt McLeish said.
“She would fly him to stay in hotels around Australia and overseas but what he didn’t realise was that his wife’s scammer lover was staying at the same hotel in another room.”
Tozer reportedly took the fall as the mastermind. Greer pleaded guilty to five counts of identity theft and was jailed for three months, while Tozer was given eight years.
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