Federal investigators have charged five people as part of a probe into $235 million allegedly defrauded from welfare agencies following a series of raids across Australia.
Police allege the five stole government funds from the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), Services Australia, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and the Department of Education by claiming rebates and benefits for services they either did not provide or only partially delivered.
Police raided 26 locations in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, the Central Coast in NSW and rural Queensland over the past three months, seizing digital devices, documents and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, silver bullion and jewellery.
Authorities conduct a search warrant at a NSW property in relation to a suspected $100 million fraud. (Supplied: Australian Federal Police)
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) said the operation involved more than 100 police officers and more than 150 Commonwealth department personnel, with help from the NSW, Queensland, South Australia and Victoria police forces.
AFP Detective Acting Superintendent Stephen Raper said defrauding government agencies amounted to stealing from the taxpayer.
“While the majority do the right thing, there are groups in our country who selfishly rort the system for their own personal gain,” he said.
The investigations include a probe into a Sydney-based family day care service. (Supplied: Australian Federal Police)
An NDIA spokesperson said the agency had strengthened its systems to detect suspicious claims earlier.
“NDIS funding is for participant supports, not the pockets of those seeking to exploit the scheme,” the spokesperson said.
NDIS Minister Jenny McAllister told ABC News Breakfast this morning it was a scheme “that has to operate with integrity”.
“Every dollar lost to fraud is a dollar that could be going to a person with disability and it’s why we’re making the investments that we have,” she said.
One of the people charged is a female NDIA employee who allegedly provided 78 NDIS participant records without authorisation to NDIS providers she knew, who in turn profited from NDIS-funded revenue, the AFP said.
Officers in Sydney investigating a suspected NDIS fraud syndicate. (Supplied: Australian Federal Police)
She will face Adelaide Magistrates Court in December accused of abusing public office.
A second alleged offender is a man in rural Victoria who police said took $700,000 from the NDIS over two years by creating two businesses to defraud his own NDIS plan.
The AFP alleges he submitted false invoices for services he claimed to have received, then distributed the funds into personal bank accounts.
He will face court in December.
Alleged Centrelink scam saw $2.5m rorted
Three others charged with fraud were Sydney-based Chinese nationals who allegedly collected Services Australia user details via a phishing scam and then redirected their support payments.
Victims were directed to a fake myGov website where they gave their Centrelink records, the AFP said.
Since March 2025, the group allegedly made more than 3,000 fraudulent transactions, stealing $2.5 million from the federal government.
The trio, aged in their 20s, were charged with one count each of dealing in proceeds of crime and faced court last month.
They were granted bail on the condition of surrendering their passports and reporting to police three days a week.
The AFP said its investigations included four other NDIS providers and one NDIS plan manager who allegedly claimed $100 million in funding since 2019.
Officers said they detected money-laundering methods such as ATM cash withdrawals of about $5.4 million, gift card purchases over $1 million, and purchases of gold bullion.
The AFP said no-one had been arrested but investigations into the alleged fraud ring were ongoing.
Investigators have found large amounts of cash during raids of suspected fraudsters. (Supplied: Australian Federal Police)
Another alleged NDIS fraud syndicate is suspected of claiming $6.7 million in financial benefits from bogus claims totalling about $83 million.
No arrests have been made but the AFP said officers had searched two properties in Liverpool and Wakeley in Sydney and there were six people of interest.
Alleged fraud of veteran support payments
The AFP is also investigating a 34-year-old man over alleged fraud against the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) worth more than $29 million.
It is suspected he billed the DVA for services not delivered or only partially delivered by his veterans support business.
Officers have seized digital devices and a huge amount of data in Sydney and rural Queensland. No arrests have been made.
The DVA announced today it had detected a separate instance of fraud relating to a Perth-based exercise physiologist who allegedly stole $140,000 in support payments for services that were never provided.
The man was sentenced yesterday to two years’ jail with a non-parole period of six months.
“This outcome reinforces that fraud against the veteran support system will not be tolerated and that those who seek to exploit it will beheld to account,” a DVA spokesperson said.
Source: www.abc.net.au
