A Singaporean Muslim NDIS provider has been jailed for at least 14 months for defrauding the scheme out of almost $300,000 by depriving her vulnerable non-English speaking clients of support.
Mumthaj Begam Kantara, 60, in November last year pleaded guilty to 14 counts of dishonest conduct causing a loss to the NDIS for claiming $296,012 in payments for services not provided to five disabled clients between 2019 and 2022, and faced the County Court in Melbourne for sentencing on Friday.
The mother-of-three was given three years’ jail by Judge John Kelly, but will be eligible for release after 14 months on a recognisance of $5,000 on a three-year good behaviour bond, the Hume Leader reported.
Judge Kelly found that Kantara, who Noticer News previously revealed was able to operate a disability support service in Melbourne despite being banned from working as a migration agent for making fraudulent applications and failing her clients, was “unlikely” to reoffend and had reasonable rehabilitation prospects.
He gave her a slight discount for a late-stage guilty plea, but told her: “I do not know what you did with the money you stole … greed seems the most likely explanation. You have not repaid a cent and you evidently propose not to.”
Judge Kelly also told Kantara that her actions had left her clients, who spoke little to no English, and their families “depressed”, “frustrated” and “hurt by your betrayal”.
“The taxpayer was the primary victim but your clients have had their lives up-ended and trust shattered,” he said.
“You had countless opportunities to reflect on the damage you were doing but you persisted. You knew intimately the extent your clients would be hurt but you ploughed on.”
NDIS Minister Jenny McAllister said Kantara’s was the 24th successful conviction since the government’s Fraud Fusion Taskforce was established.
“If you exploit people with a disability and try to defraud vulnerable people who speak English as a second language, you do not belong in the NDIS. You belong in prison,” she said.
“We’re disrupting and removing dodgy providers from the NDIS because Australians with disability and taxpayers deserve better.”
She also said Kantara has been ordered to pay $296,000 to the Commonwealth in full restitution and given an lifetime NDIS ban.
Kantara, who previously posted photos of herself dining with former NDIS Minister Bill Shorten during the same period she was stealing from the scheme, was allowed to run her Elite Smart Community Care NDIS company in Campbellfield after being deregistered as a migration agent for “extremely serious” misconduct.
The Department of Home Affairs Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (MARA) said in its 2017 cancellation decision that Kantara had failed to act in the legitimate interests of her clients, failed to manage client money appropriately, and made misleading and inaccurate statements in support of applications.
The office found that Kantara “was not a person of integrity or was otherwise not a fit and proper person to give immigration assistance” and that multiple conduct breaches, including fraudulent applications, had a “serious impact” on her clients.
The decision referred to complaints from three clients anonymised as Mr O, Ms K, and Mr A, and found Kantara demonstrated a “lack of regard to their dependence on her as a registration agent”, wasted their time and money, and compromised their future migration prospects.
In regards to a fourth complainant, Mr M, MARA found Kantara charged $2,000 for inaccurate student visa advice and services that were never provided, and then refused to pay a refund on request for three months and stopped answering his calls.
MARA found that Kantara took a payment from Mr O that was supposed to be for a tribunal review application fee to challenge his refused Partner visa, but treated the money as her own, using her credit card for the application fee which was repeatedly declined despite multiple attempts by the tribunal to inform her.
The tribunal then had no jurisdiction to consider the application because the fee had not been received in the timeframe allowed.
Kantara then lodged a Protection visa application on Mr O’s behalf without his knowledge or consent containing “fraudulent claims”, including stating that he feared for his life due to his ethnicity if he returned to Ghana because of a non-existent civil war.
“The application for the subclass 866 visa was made fraudulently without instruction and refused on the basis that Mr O was not a person in respect of whom Australia had protection obligations under the Act or Regulations,” the decision stated.
“The application had no prospects of success as Mr O admitted in his complaint to the Authority that ‘I in no way fear for my life if returned to my country’.”
MARA found that Kantara lodged a series of incompetent visa and review applications for Ms K that were all refused and resulted in her being excluded from Australia for three years, despite her paying Kantara $15,000 over a five-year period.
In one instance Kantara advised her client to travel overseas for “at least one day” to lodge a work visa application, and Ms K flew to India to visit family. But the regulations required her to be abroad for the application and decision, resulting in a failure to obtain the visa and costing Ms K even more money in flights and accommodation.
In regards to Mr A, MARA found that Kantara charged him $13,500 but provided inaccurate advice in regards to two visa applications and a refusal decision review, and at one stage applied for an English language requirement waiver that was not allowed.
MARA further found that Kantara “deliberately failed to engage with the Authority”, “demonstrated behaviour that indicates an indifference to the law”, and “attempted to hinder the Authority’s investigation of her conduct”.
“The Agent has demonstrated behaviour of an extremely serious nature by acting in a manner which indicates a blatant disregard for the complainants’ best interests and welfare,” the decision states.
“The Agent’s behaviour is particularly abhorrent in light of the fact that she lodged fraudulent documents purportedly signed by Mr O in an attempt to mislead the Department. I consider that this behaviour has the capacity to tarnish the migration agent profession.”
The decision also noted that while Kantara asked for leniency by claiming to suffer from a medical condition, which was not detailed for privacy reasons, she had not shown evidence of treatment or shown how it may have impacted her conduct as a migration agent.
Header image: Left, Mumthaj Begam Kantara (LinkedIn). Right, Kantara at a Multicultural business dinner with then-NDIS Minister Bill Shorten in 2022 (Facebook).
The post Muslim disability support boss jailed for defrauding NDIS out of $300K first appeared on The Noticer.
The NoticerRead More
R1
T1
