In events similar to those that inspired the Steven Speilberg film Catch Me If You Can, Phillip John Heggie wasn’t your typical year 12 student. While most people his age might have been content to earn money the hard way by packing shelves at Woollies, Heggie had bigger plans. The type of plans worth $2million.
Today, Heggie pleaded not guilty to 100 charges in court for his part as the mastermind of an elaborate eBay fraud scheme which he pulled in 2009, while as a year 12 student performing his end of school studies. Strangely enough, part of the fraud came from a bank error where $2 million was accidentally transferred into one of his false accounts by an unsuspecting bank teller. Talk about dumb luck.
Heggie might have even got away with it all, had he not decided to keep a journal which provided a rich and detailed account of the fraud say detectives. Police were most interested in his journal because it helped provide them with evidence on how the fraud was pulled off, including the use of fake eBay and PayPal accounts in different names, by way of selling goods that never existed.
[Via Canberra Times]