Christchurch serial fraudster admits $350k con

Brendon Karl Dean Harris appeared in the Christchurch District Court on Friday before Judge Raoul Neave where he pleaded guilty to 13 charges including causing loss by deception and attempting to cause loss by deception. Photo / George Heard

A man has pleaded guilty to a sophisticated fraud that left several banks more than $350,000 out of pocket.

Brendon Karl Dean Harris appeared in the Christchurch District Court on Friday before Judge Raoul Neave, where he pleaded guilty to 13 charges including causing loss by deception and attempting to cause loss by deception.

According to the summary of facts, police were approached by Vodafone in August 2021 regarding several unauthorised sim swaps and sim porting occurrences involving their customers.

Porting fraud involves someone porting a mobile number out to another mobile network without authority and then trying to access their bank account.

Vodafone identified a number of commonalities between their customers and the phone numbers involved in the offending through calls placed to their call centres, where individuals were purporting to be the valid account holder, and adding other associates to the victim accounts under the pretence of being a legitimate party to the account.

Police then launched Operation Apollo. Early in the investigation it became apparent Harris was involved due to voice calls made to Vodafone, various banks, and utility companies.

Harris was no stranger to police having previously been jailed as part of a $600,000 scam of the elderly.

In the latest offending, Harris either attempted to elicit information from the company he called, or to use the information he had obtained to gain access to the victims’ utility and banking accounts with the objective to cause loss to the victims.

The modus operandi identified in Operation Apollo involved a “multi-layered” approach to the fraud.

The first layer consisted of calls to utility companies and banks to obtain personal information of the victim through data leakage at the respective entities.

The second layer involved calling telecommunication providers purporting to be their customer using the information obtained through their initial calls to the banks and utility companies.

A request is then made of the telecommunication provider to either port the phone number to another provider or add an associate of Harris’ to the victim’s account so that the associate is then able to physically present in store and have the victim’s phone number swapped to a new sim card, which is in the possession of the associate.

Once the ported or swapped sim card is in the possession of the associate the third layer of the fraud consists of a further call that is made to the banks purporting to be their customer, requesting information which would allow them to access victim’s bank accounts, with any two-factor authentication text messages being sent to the customer phone numbers which they were in possession of.

Harris, and his associates, were then able to access the victims’ bank accounts and begin a series of funds transfers to multiple mule accounts, with further funds transfers being completed from the mule accounts, to further mule accounts.

One of the victims had their driver’s licence stolen during a burglary at their home in Christchurch. A few weeks later Harris set up a fraudulent Trade Me account in the name of the victim.

He then sent 22 messages from the Trade Me account to other users in relation to purchasing high-value vehicles such as an Audi, and a $96,000 Tesla.

In trying to buy the Tesla, he asked the owner to send him a photo of his and his wife’s driver’s licence. He then tried to get a $30,000 loan with a bank using their credentials but was declined.

On June 19, 2021, another victim listed their BMW for sale worth $149,000.

He provided his bank account details to a person who was messaging him about the car and a day later noticed his cell phone had stopped working.

He checked on the Vodafone app and noticed that 12 calls had been made to Westpac on his phone number, which he had not made.

The victim then asked for a block on his accounts. The next morning, he noticed the block was unsuccessful.

Over five days there were nine unauthorised withdrawals from his bank account totalling $56,000. These funds were transferred into mule accounts.

One of the victims received a call from an unknown man in September 2021 purporting to be from the Westpac Fraud Department. The person stated that increases had been made to his credit limits on some accounts.

The victim was asked to read out a verification code which was sent to his cell phone. The victim was unable to provide the code to the caller while on his cell phone, so the caller phoned the victim on his landline. The victim then provided the code.

Harris then called Westpac pretending to be the victim. He said he had bought a new computer and his customer ID number was not saved on his device. He was provided with his ID number and then successfully requested to change his pin number.

After correctly answering several detailed verification questions, Harris added two payees to the account.

He then phoned Westpac again purporting to be the victim and added two further payees to the account.

The victim eventually realised that $147,580.16 had been transferred out of his account into four separate mule accounts. $36,000 was recovered by Westpac with a loss of $110,000 to the bank.

In total, the offending left the banks more than $350,000 out of pocket.

Harris declined to comment when spoken to by police.