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« on: June 23, 2006, 02:51:45 AM » |
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Lamborghini in tax dodge case
Geesche Jacobsen
June 22, 2006
Sydney Morning Herald
WITHIN hours of paying for an orange Lamborghini Gallardo with a false $415,000 cheque, the 21-year-old buyer was picked up by police in Yagoona and the car impounded.
But the investigation into the alleged money-laundering scheme in October 2004 quickly pointed police to a bigger suspected tax scam by the Mosman car dealership which had sold him the car.
The dealership, Mosman Automobiles, was owned by Bob Ljubic, who was found dead five months later. A man has been charged with his murder.
It is alleged Ljubic's widow Natasha, and sales manager Michael John Wood, failed to pay $537,000 luxury car tax and transfer stamp duty on the sale of four Lamborghinis, four Porsches and one top-model Range Rover.
A crown prosecutor, Bruce Love, told a committal hearing at the Downing Centre Local Court yesterday it was alleged the taxes were circumvented by forged paperwork.
The buyer of the orange Lamborghini, Hassan El-Badawi, told the court the car would have cost $495,000, but he had been told by Wood that if the car remained registered to the dealership, luxury car tax worth $80,000 would not have to be paid.
Similar schemes are alleged to have operated in relation to other cars sold between January 2002 and April 2005.
Natasha Ljubic, who did the company's paperwork, is facing a total of 19 charges, while Wood has been charged with seven counts.
Other witnesses told the hearing yesterday they had dealt mainly with Mr Ljubic when purchasing luxury cars from the dealership.
"Bob [Ljubic] is the man at the top who controls it," one car dealer, Daniel Robert Phillips, told police.
The hearing continues.
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