A convicted fraudster who portrayed himself as a pillar of Sydney’s Jewish community is behind bars after allegedly stealing more than $650,000 from six people in a property investment scam.
NSW Police allege South African-born Darron Marc Levin, 51, who also claimed he worked for a Mossad-linked Jewish security organisation, impersonated a lawyer and financial institutions and used false financial and legal documents to swindle investors between March 2023 and June this year.
Detectives assisted by officers from Support Group ODIN raided a unit in Potts Point on Tuesday morning, arrested Levin, and allegedly seized 60 luxury watches and more than 100 items of jewellery worth more than $2.5 million.
Levin was charged with 14 counts of “dishonestly obtain financial advantage by deception”, 15 counts of “use false document to obtain financial advantage”, and a single count of “deal with property proceeds of crime”, and faced court on Wednesday.
A police prosecutor opposed bail, telling the court Levin allegedly carried out the scam while serving an intensive corrections order for “similar offending between 2024 and 2026”, and was facing an unrelated charge of threatening to distribute and intimate image without consent, The Daily Telegraph reported.
“Police have obtained financial records, emails and banking records that demonstrate that immediately after receiving money (from the complainants), it’s been dissipated towards gambling and personal expenses rather than the property acquisitions he advised the complainants would occur,” the prosecutor said.
“The police seized $2.5 million in jewellery which the prosecution are alleging are the proceeds of crime.”
Levin’s Legal Aid solicitor Madeline Pfeffercorn applied for bail with strict reporting conditions, but Judge Daniel Covington found there was an unacceptable risk of reoffending or interfering with witnesses or evidence, and remanded Levin in custody. He will face court again on September 10.
“I’m concerned about the sophistication in terms of the [alleged] offending while subject to an ICO – there has certainly, on the face of it, been evidence of further offending,” Judge Covington said.
The arrest came a month after a Chinese social media influencer told A Current Affair she dated Levin after meeting him on dating app Bumble last year, but had no idea he had been given a 23-month community corrections order for domestic violence assault occasioning actual bodily harm just four months earlier.
Sissi Wang told the program that Levin convinced her to invest $30,000 in a Bondi property deal but never paid her the promised returns.
She said he also told her he was working for Jewish security group CSG on the night of the Bondi Islamic terror attack, and had an Israeli Defence Force background. CSG told the program it had never employed him.
Levin sent his children to a $40,000/year Jewish school in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, drove a Bentley, wore designer clothes and ate at expensive restaurants, MichaelWestMedia reported.
Header image: Left, Darron Levin (supplied). Right, Levin being arrested (NSW Police).
