For the past few days, our nation’s attention has been captivated by Phillip Harrison, the Sunshine Coast tradie who was caught with $12,000 of methamphetamine and MDMA when police pulled over in his late-model Audi.
That story, already weird enough, took a further turn when Harrison’s lawyer told the court that his client was in possession of a $596 million bank balance, and an extensive property portfolio.
Harrison claimed that the money – enough to buy and sell The Block many, many times over – came from shares and overseas investments, and added “I own the ASX200, I’m in control of it.”
At the time, Harrison’s lawyer said that he was skeptical of his client’s claims, and did not believe them until logging into an online banking account, with a supplied username and password, to see a cash balance of $596 million.
The court heard that Harrison’s property portfolio was worth $1.2 billion, although later, he told reporters that the figure was only $1.2 million, adding “my lawyer was delusional, I told him not to say it.”
The 29-year-old was released on bail and ordered to surrender his passport, but as he prepares to fight charges including drug possession, his fortune – which did not raise any flags or get anyone’s attention before last weekend – has been called into question.
Brisbane’s Courier Mail are today reporting that Harrison may have may have fooled the court via “a computer application that mimics an online Commonwealth Bank account.”
The reason for this, they claim, is that criminals with substantial assets are “considered better candidates for bail because they are less likely to flee.”
We found at least one such program on the App Store – called ‘Fake Bank’, it claims to the “the most realistic” program of its type, although we didn’t actually try it as we don’t want our accounts phished by some bullshit.
Whether the court was actually fooled by something like this, or whether Harrison actually managed to accumulate hundreds of millions of dollars without anybody noticing, remains to be seen.
He will return to court on April 18.
Source: Courier Mail.
Photo: Instagram.
