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Champion booked a sale at something less than what the contract was for. The ADM, or part of the ADM, went to the fraud account. The dealership most likely knew nothing about that part. As the person committing the fraud could tell the customer you want to leave that off the final contract as you don't want to pay sales tax on the ADM when you register the car.
When the car is delivered it's sold and papered at the price Champion thinks the car was sold at. Neither Champion or the customer would know the difference and the salesman walks away with the deposit in their bank account.
This could go on for years undetected assuming the salesman can control the situation long enough. Fast forward a few years and the salesman needs more money. Now he goes further by "selling" the same car more than once. Now they are going to get caught. But they need the money and it just keeps getting worse until they are caught.
Unfortunately for the 99.9% of the employees at the dealership this is going to impact them to some degree. However as has been stated most buyers will never know this even happened. I hope this turns out ok for everyone involved except for the individual(s) responsible for the fraud.
This seems spot on. Tell customer pay 25k ADM and get a check. Tell dealership you got 15k ADM. Put 10k into your private account. Tell customer it's not on paperwork to save a few $$ on taxes (which is funny you're will to pay 25k over on a car but those last few hundred for ADM tax you refuse to pay are helping to keep it inconspicuous).
Until we hear stories of guys who have dealt with Shiraaz before, there are a lot of hypotheticals. Some of these victims are possibly out as much as $100K or more.
I bet Shiraaz has a long history of shady dealings. Evident with the older 911R incident. I think there's more damaging stuff on the way.
I'm sure the death of the owner was about to bring change to the management there. He possibly didn't see a future there with ongoing scams and decided to ramp up his fraud and cash out and run.
Until we hear stories of guys who have dealt with Shiraaz before, there are a lot of hypotheticals. Some of these victims are possibly out as much as $100K or more.
I bet Shiraaz has a long history of shady dealings. Evident with the older 911R incident. I think there's more damaging stuff on the way.
I'm sure the death of the owner was about to bring change to the management there. He possibly didn't see a future there with ongoing scams and decided to ramp up his fraud and cash out and run.
Well, at least One RL poster apparently had direct experience with their paperwork not reflecting $15 K in ADM paid to SS... not so hypothetical.
You're going about it wrong. Don't expect cooperation from Champion Porsche as their lawyers are probably concerned about whether or not their client was involved in the crime as well as civil liability and probably will not provide you with any information. If you've been a victim of a crime, you need to report it to police. And, you may want to get a lawyer.
Victims should note the following from the Florida Department of Corporations that can be found here for public records search for Champion Porsche and Champion Autosport at http://dos.sunbiz.org/ficinam.html. The results are below. When you look up Champion Autosport and find Devika Budhram as the owner, and do a Google search for her and for Shiraaz Sookralli you get this result for devika budhram-sookrall: https://plus.google.com/113369316500009805937. Your attorney might be able to tell you whether the guy in the Google picture looks like the same guy from Champion Porsche or not and, whether or not it's a husband and wife conspiracy.
None of the above is legal advice.
Dan (just posts up public information)
Interesting, he's been using the name Champion Autosport since 2010, I wonder what kind of business he was running before the scam.
That's good info. Better to list backup like you did. Having two threads on the same subject doesn't help either. The other one which was started after this one should be closed.
...on a personal note, except the girlfriend, Wagner and Wood, I met (past) and/or know (present) all of the parties I mentioned, I also know their lawyer. It is a very unfortunate situation, the $2.5mm can be recovered, Champion Porsche will stay in business, but Dave Maraj has sadly past away, and he deserves a lot of respect for all the actions, support and philanthropy he consistently carried as a successful business owner. There are a lot of hard working people at Champion, and they are being negatively affected.
Blaming an entire organization of marketing, parts, service, new car sales, used car sales, and their giving for the community on a single individual is as simple as blaming the people from countries oppressed by a dictator.
The IRS should get involved as there must be ALOT of sales tax avoidance that happened over the years.
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IRS does not get involved in Sales Tax issues, as they are local to the State. One might reasonably guess that income taxes were not paid on the ill gotten gains from the fraud, but who knows.
seriously ask the question, was shiraz suckballi present at teh time of maraj's "drowning" or was it murder? Is there a family connection between Maraj and him? is that why they dint fire him before?
I was referring to Shirazz throwing his life away and the owner dying in such strange circumstances around the same time this scam is coming to light.
Reminds me of another scam. Someone called me at my old dealership saying he fronted someone money to "invest" in some GT cars and a 918. He called to see if he could get his deposits back. The scammer showed this "investor" fake bill of sales with my dealership's info on it. I told him we didn't produce the paperwork and never heard of the guy. He was out something like $30,000.
IRS does not get involved in Sales Tax issues, as they are local to the State. One might reasonably guess that income taxes were not paid on the ill gotten gains from the fraud, but who knows.
Thanks for clarification.
Yes, state sales tax and income tax evasion as well.
This is really strange. I did not know an entity can apply for a license prefixed by "APPLICATION FOR REGISTRATION OF FICTITIOUS NAME" name which is synonymous to "Doing Business As."
IRS does not get involved in Sales Tax issues, as they are local to the State. One might reasonably guess that income taxes were not paid on the ill gotten gains from the fraud, but who knows.
Agreed - the local authorities where the car would be registered would be interested in the sales tax. That said you can create a company and not register it for local transaction taxes and operate it, or even register it but claim your transactions are not subject to transaction taxes and it would not be hard to report amounts to the IRS. They should be reporting it anyway as the $10,000 bank reporting threshold most likely comes into play here. My guess would be that they may actually be reporting the revenue on the fictitious business and showing expenses that bring the income and taxes down to a minimal amount and they look legit. Probably a relatively easy case for a good forensic accountant. Honestly this type of thing wouldn't be too hard to pull off without having a separation of duties (i.e. separate the sales process from the deposit/payment process, which it probably was technically separate) at the dealership and even with a separation of duties I can see it happening. It's just a matter of time before something like this would come out, but it seems like he probably got away with it for a while, at least since sometime around 2010 most likely. Not that I would ever do something like this, but I can think of a few ways to make it work and at least make it last as long as possible.
09-14-2018, 09:27 AM
