A business owner violated the trust of 43 Vodafone customers at his Tuggeranong store, giving their personal details to an identity theft syndicate that defrauded credit providers of nearly $1 million.
The emotional and financial impacts on the customers were laid bare in the ACT Supreme Court on Monday, when one of them labelled Mohit Arora, 34, "an evil, despicable human being".
Agreed facts show the individual victims attended the Tuggeranong Vodafone store, which Arora owned and operated at the time, between March 2019 and May 2019 to enter into or adjust phone contracts.
In accordance with the company's policy, they provided documents to verify their identities.
Arora went on to provide their details to a criminal group, which used the information between November 2019 and May 2020 to apply for credit cards, debit cards and personal loans in the customers' names.
ANZ, Bankwest, Latitude Financial Services and American Express approved a total of 86 fraudulent applications and never received any repayments, resulting in combined losses of $928,661.66.
Police executed search warrants at the Greenway home Arora then occupied in September 2020, finding two letters addressed to one of the identity theft victims in a television unit drawer.
Arora was charged with unlawfully dealing in identification information and, later, dozens of counts of being knowingly concerned in fraud.
His case was listed for a November 2021 trial, at which prosecutors estimated 70 witnesses would give evidence.
Less than a month out from the trial, however, an agreement was struck for all charges to be replaced by one count of participating in a criminal group, to which Arora pleaded guilty.
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The agreed facts note that no other participants in the identity theft syndicate have been identified.
When Arora appeared in court on Monday, proceedings began with prosecution solicitor Corey O'Connor reading aloud 11 victim impact statements.
One Tuggeranong Vodafone store customer described having to delay her retirement because Arora's actions left her "too sick to take the plunge".
"I have felt violated," the woman wrote.
"I feel like someone has broken into my house and knows everything about me.
"If the [Australian Federal Police] had not told me, I may never have known what [Arora] had done."
She ended with a message for Arora, who now lives in Sydney.
"You really are an evil, despicable human being and I hope the judge gives you the maximum sentence that you deserve."
Another, a single mother of children with special needs, was having surgery for breast cancer around the time her identity was stolen.
The woman was also in the process of buying an investment property, but Arora's offence prevented her from completing the transaction.
"My life was complicated before Mohit struck," her statement said.
"Mohit took it to a whole new low."
A customer who once regarded Arora as friendly and engaging described, in his statement, how he and his partner would often wave to the offender as they passed the Tuggeranong Vodafone store.
His partner was pregnant at the time, and he was stunned to later learn Arora had enabled the theft of his identity while fully aware of the impending birth.
Others, described by Acting Justice Stephen Norrish as feeling "very aggrieved and betrayed", detailed impacts that included the destruction of their good credit histories.
Arora's barrister, April Francis, told the court her client had allowed an IT service provider, whom he was paying in cash, to access Vodafone customers' personal information.
She said Arora had been told this man intended to sell the information to third parties "for marketing purposes".
"The offender naively expected that the information was not to be used in the pernicious ways in which it was," Ms Francis told Acting Justice Norrish.
"Your honour may accept that the offender was manipulated in a way that is generic to those who perpetrate frauds of this kind."
Ms Francis conceded, however, that Arora had engaged in "mischief" by taking a "wholly unjustifiable risk".
She ultimately pressed for a suspended jail sentence or an intensive correction order.
Crown prosecutor Rebecca Christensen SC argued a term of full-time imprisonment was open, given the significant impact on both the Vodafone customers and the defrauded financial institutions.
Ms Christensen said Arora's participation in the criminal group was critical to the syndicate's success, telling the court the 34-year-old had enabled "sophisticated activity".
Acting Justice Norrish will sentence Arora, who is on bail, this Thursday.
