By Emily Caulkett-
An Australian man has been jailed after he went on an unexpected shopping spree with $750,000, after it was mistakenly transferred to the man’s bank account and he certainly made the most of it.
The money was mistakenly transferred into his account from a couple who was trying to buy a house and made a mistake while paying.
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On 12 December, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. He’ll be eligible for parole only in October 2023.
Ghadia pleaded guilty to two counts of dealing with the proceeds of crime and will be eligible for parole in October 2023.
The man, identified as Abdel Ghadia, was over the moon when the amount appeared in his account like magic, though clearly accidentally.
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The court heard how Ghadia told police he ‘just woke up and saw the money’.
He proceeded to buy almost $600,000 of gold bullion at one store in Sydney, plus over $110,000 at a separate Brisbane store, where he also bought expensive coins.
Ghadia started off at the ABC Bullion store, where he spent a total of $598,188 on gold bars ranging in weight from 10oz to 1kg, with the purchases stretched out over six visits in June 2021.
He then spent $62,843 on a 500g gold bullion and 10 oz bar at Queensland-based gold dealer Ainslie Bullion, as well as $48,222-worth of gold KHC coins, as per a Unilad report. He delved into the international money market to buy $14,490 in foreign exchange.
Between June and July that year, he also withdrew $13,600 in cash from ATMs across Sydney, spending $6,235 on clothes from Uniqlo and JD Sports and makeup from MECCA at Westfield Parramatta.
Westfield Parrameta
According to court documents, the Sydney couple whose money was being spent were attempting to buy a new home in October 2020, and were nearing the final stages of the process by June the next year – at which point their broker told them to transfer $759,314 to a nominated Commonwealth Bank account to finalise the purchase
The couple believed they were communicating with their mortgage broker by email, and were unaware that his account had been hacked by hackers
Some how their money ended up in Ghadia’s bank account, who lived like a king for a year before ending his holiday lifestyle in jail.
It is illegal in most countries to spend money in your account that you cannot account for, as people are expected to notify the bank if they find money they know does not belong to them.
Some lawyers have suggested that a person can only escape the full force of the law in the above circumstances only if they can show genuine expectation of such high sums of money from an individual or company who has the sums and can vouch they had promised the recipient the specified sum, a scenario almost as likely s pigs flying. p
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