Thinking Big !

The revelation that a group of young people from the big end of town successfully netted a sting on the tax office that delivered them a hundred and sixty five million dollars will draw admiration in criminal circles.  Of course it helped that family relationships allowed them to garner information not available to the general public and vital to putting this scheme together.

They setup a payroll company that offered services to Australian companies with either low or no charges.  This company would manage the payroll, sort out the tax payments, Medicare levy, Superannuation and other deductions, and compile the resulting pay envelope to be handed to each employee.

Once this was up and running they put together a shadowy subsidiary with the recruitment of " straw " directors drawn from welfare recipients and drug addicts.  In that instance, the tax money that should have gone to the tax office went into the pockets of the scammers.

Thy were not discreet with their loot.  When the sting came undone and the police raided twenty-nine properties and arrested nine conspirators they uncovered a virtual Aladdin's  cave of treasure.  It contained high end sports cars, boats and even airplanes, fashionable motor bikes and other " boy's toys " and individual excesses such as Rolex watches and wine collections of rare vintage.

This was a truly audacious scam that has left a high tax official with deep embarrassment. Details about the inner workings of the tax office allowed his son to be the master mind devising this very successful criminal foray.   It seems certain the police will need the help of their scientific branch to fully investigate the depth of the penetration.

The nine people arrested for this crime spent a few brief moments before a magistrate and were then granted bail.   No doubt they will resume their extravagant  social life during the many months the prosecution will take to complete the investigation and put together the case to be presented in court. They may be required to report to police on a regular basis and have their passports confiscated, but many people will note a vast dissimilarity in the way we treat criminals.

If a teenage Aboriginal youth is caught down a city lane, siphoning petrol out of cars with a length of tubing, he will most likely languish on remand until the courts are ready to hear his case.  But if the accused is a politician - or from the big end of town - he or she will usually be represented by a high end lawyer and be granted almost unlimited freedom.

It seems we bestow a degree of admiration for the clever people who " think big " and devise non violent crime.   It seems to be rewarded with the absolute minimum time and inconvenience in a police cell !