Qld: Five-year jail term for fraudster

AAP General News (Australia)
08-30-2001
Qld: Five-year jail term for fraudster

BRISBANE, Aug 30 AAP - A man who committed a $1 million sales tax fraud was jailed
for five years in Brisbane today.

Zhi Chao Chen, 31, pleaded guilty in the District Court to seven counts of defrauding
the Commonwealth, three of opening false bank accounts and two charges of operating false
bank accounts between January 1999 and June last year.

Prosecutor Russell Hanson said Chen had purchased $4.7 million in computer equipment
without paying sales tax by using the accreditation of traders without their consent.

Chen claimed he was forced into the scam by a former friend to whom he owed $100,000
in gambling debts.

But Chen continued with the scam once his friend left the country.

The introduction of the GST means the scam can now not be replicated.

Chen has previous convictions in Sydney, including attempting to bribe a police officer
and obtaining property by deception.

Defence counsel Tony Kimmins said Chen came to Australia as a 17-year-old on a student
visa in 1988.

He said Chen had also been severely affected by the murder of his best friend, John
Kai Lung Chan earlier this year.

Chan, 24, was the owner of a computer store in inner-city Woolloongabba, and was stabbed
to death while working back late at night.

Judge Kerry O'Brien sentenced Chen to five years' jail with a non-parole period of
15 months, saying he had played a significant role in a major tax fraud scheme, and an
example had to be set for others.

AAP smk/sc/ns/sb

KEYWORD: CHEN

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