Faizan Khan told his two younger brothers he was going home to Pakistan to get married, when he left them with millions of fake postage stamps to package and send off.
He never returned to Australia.
Amidst a COVID-19 lockdown, in March 2021 six federal police officers stormed Shaheryer and Obaid Khan’s Melbourne apartment.
One officer placed Shaheryer on a toilet for more than three hours while they questioned him, his lawyer told the County Court on August 4.
“At one stage he wanted to go to the toilet and he was asked by the informant whether he ‘wanted to do number ones of twos’,” barrister Penny Marcou said.
Thirty-five boxes holding 2.4 million counterfeit stamps were found at their property, which police estimated were worth $6 million (US$3.9 million) on face value.
The younger Khan brothers have each pleaded guilty to one commonwealth charge of possessing paper or articles resembling postage stamps, knowing they were not postage stamps.
The pair sat in the court dock on August 4, supported by an interpreter, for a pre-sentence hearing.
Faizan Khan, who remains in Pakistan, has not been charged.
Shaheryer and Obaid Khan have admitted packaging up parcels of fraudulent stamps and posting them to three customers, who believed they were real, which caused Australia Post and the Commonwealth to lose $10,340 (US$6780), the court was told.
Their older brother had started the business from their Brunswick East apartment, before he returned to Pakistan in Jan. 2021.
He was the only brother who profited from the ruse and he would purchase the fake stamps online through the Alibaba marketplace and have them delivered to the apartment.
He sold the counterfeits on websites including prepaid.com and Austral Pack.
He continued to operate the business from Pakistan and told his brothers to package and post the stamps for him.
Investigators found three stamp purchasers, including Jiayi Gu, a licensee for a post office in Seaford who spent more than $6,000 (US$3,900) on the counterfeit stamps between January and February 2021.
The fraud came undone when Australia Post seized packages of the stamps in February 2021 and referred it to police.
Judge Liz Gaynor described the offending as a “public attack” and “assault” on Australia’s postal system.
“They’ve engaged with an enterprise which has the potential to undermine the Australian postage system,” Gaynor said.
The two brothers, who are on student visas in Australia, are facing up to five years in prison.
But Marcou said Shaheryer did not deserve to be jailed because he was a “minion” who was directed by Faizan.
He was not aware of how serious his offending was until police arrived at the door with a search warrant, Gaynor said.
Obaid’s barrister Samuel Tovey said the brothers only agreed to package and send off the stamps because of Faizan’s influence over them and cannot be punished for selling the stamps.
“They have packaged it and sent it at the behest of their brother,” Tovey said.
Judge Gaynor will sentence the pair, who remain on bail, later this month.
