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A 24-year-old man was jailed after going on a spending spree with thousands of dollars which had been mistakenly transferred to his account.
Sydney man Abdel Ghadia pleaded guilty to two counts of dealing with the proceeds of crime after he splashed the cash which unexpectedly landed in his account in 2021.
The money had come from a young couple who had been attempting to transfer $750,000 AUD (US $511,499) as payment for the new house they were buying in October 2020.
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Court documents showed the pair were nearing the final stages of the process by June the next year – at which point their broker told them to transfer the money to a nominated Commonwealth Bank account to finalise the purchase.
However, when the conveyancer came back to them to say that the bank wasn’t able to find the money, it emerged the couple had accidentally entered the wrong number on the transfer, and it had never made it to the intended account.
The cash was tracked to the account belonging to Ghadia; an aspiring rapper who had been earning $4,800 a month at a clothes warehouse.
He was apprehended and questioned by police in October 2021, telling officers he ‘just woke up and saw the money'.
“The money just dropped into my account and I spent it,” Ghadia said.
“I had no idea how it got there, and I told the bank, but I did go and spend it.”
Clearly not willing to leave the money where it was, Ghadia stared 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 also spent $62,843 on a 500g gold bullion and 10oz bar at Queensland-based gold dealer Ainslie Bullion, as well as $48,222-worth of gold KHC coins.
Ghadia said he ‘wanted to give gold’ to someone he ‘loved’ - which he admitted to police upon his arrest – so 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 before finally splashing out $6,235 on clothes from Uniqlo and JD Sports and makeup from MECCA at Westfield Parramatta.
After pleading guilty at Sydney's Burwood Local Court, Ghadia was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Emily Brown