Prestige Australian real estate agent charged with A$3.6 million fraud
An Australian real estate agent specialising in luxury properties with high-profile owners, including fashion designer Collette Dinnigan, has been charged with 15 fraud offences after she allegedly misused A$3.69 million (NZ$4.01 million) which was placed into her agency's trust account by various clients over the course of two years. Nicolette van Wijngaarden, 44, is the director of Unique Estates, a boutique real estate agency now under liquidation which specialised in selling multi-million dollar properties in NSW, Victoria and Queensland. She is accused of fraudulently dealing with home deposits paid to her company, including A$105,000 from the sale of Dinnigan's Surf and Stables retreat at Milton on the NSW south coast in late 2017. Van Wijngarden is also accused of "falsely representing" that A$1,165,876 from rental properties would remain in the Unique Estates trust account until the money was paid to the property owners.
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