A fugitive developer who gained notoriety for giving his ex-wife a yellow Lamborghini says he will return to Australia to fix up his faulty apartments if police promise not to arrest him.
Jean Nassif made a series of wild claims and promises about his business affairs in his first major interview since fleeing Australia in December 2022, leaving millions owed and thousands of buyers trapped in uninhabitable units.
Nassif, of Lebanese descent, was located in the country’s capital, Beirut, by abc reporters and agreed to meet them in a cafe.
Fugitive property developer Jean Nassif (pictured left with his ex-wife Nisserine ‘Nissy’ Nassif) fled Australia in December 2020.
He is wanted by New South Wales police on charges of large-scale fraud, but Nasif, 55, said if he is pardoned he will return to Australia and fix thousands of substandard apartments sold by his company Toplace.
“I’ll fix it,” Mr Nassif, who during the interview called himself “Earth’s number one developer”, told ABC.
‘If they move this arrest shit and allow me to go back and take my business without inventing anything and they put me in jail.
“I already asked the police to mediate and allow me to negotiate bail and set aside the arrest because I am not a criminal.”
After saying he was ready to return to Australia at the end of the year, he contacted ABC reporters to say he was seriously ill with a brain infection and was in hospital.
Labeling himself “the son of God” who “will not allow evil to prevail on this Earth”, Nassif claimed that all accusations against him were fabricated by high-profile Sydney identities, who resented his meteoric rise, or by Lebanese gangs who tried to extort him.
Nissy, Nassif’s ex-wife, poses in front of the infamous yellow Lamborghini that the developer gave her in a TikTok that generated a thousand imitations and parodies.
Establishment figures attacked him because he was an upstart outsider, he claimed, saying that the government had blocked him everywhere and that the media had been deployed to destroy his name and character.
‘What did I do wrong? Who did I steal from? Where is the victim? Mr. Nassif asked as he protested his innocence.
In 2022, Nassif and Toplace’s building licenses were revoked after a series of serious problems were found at the developer’s Atmosphere and Skyview apartments in Castle Hill and Vicinity apartments in Canterbury, both in western Sydney.
Vicinity’s 400 residents were left to foot a repair bill of up to $100 million, while 900 apartments in the five towers of Toplace’s Skyview development were deemed unsafe to even occupy due to cracks found by building inspectors in 2021. .
After Nassif fled Australia, leaving his family behind, Toplace was placed into administration having racked up debts of more than $600 million.
Auditors found that Toplace was likely insolvent as of 2020 and that the company had not kept adequate records to track a wide range of loans and transactions between companies, some of which took place overseas.
They also claimed that Nassif misappropriated company funds for personal use.
Nassif denied all these accusations and called them “false” and “lies.”
He said the money he took out of the company came from his own salary and that the company was still “very strong.”
The Nassifs became meme-worthy as examples of decadent opulence after Nassif posted an infamous Valentine’s Day TikTok, where he gifted his then-wife a yellow Lamborghini.
While filming the car delivered to the couple, his ex-wife posed in front of him blowing kisses while wearing ripped designer jeans, a Gucci belt and a matching yellow basque with pink sunglasses.
Mr Nassif said behind the camera: ‘And the beast arrives. Congratulations to my new wife; she finally she is in our garage. Congratulations Mrs. Nassif? Do you like it?… Do you like it?’
The images sparked a series of parody videos mocking the couple, with clips of bananas, yellow rubber gloves and yellow-lidded trash cans, delivered in a creepily drawling voice: “Do you like it?… Do you like it?” like?”
After her husband fled, Nassif suffered the indignity of having administrators seize her $480,000 Lamborghini from a car park at Rhodes Shopping Centre, in Sydney’s west, to recover assets to pay Toplace’s creditors.
“It was in Coles, Rhodes shopping centre… we went back to where I parked it and it disappeared,” he told the Daily Telegraph.
‘The children were crying and trying to help me find him. “I called security and they checked the cameras (in the parking lot) and they could see a guy taking it.”
The administrators have also seized other vehicles belonging to members of Mr Nassif’s family.
Nasif told ABC that this news causes him mental anguish.
‘They are stealing my empire before my eyes. Destroying my family,’ she said.
‘They took my children’s cars. I am ashamed of them. And now they want to take away the house where my three small children live.’
During his reign as one of Sydney’s most high-profile developers, Nassif was caught with cocaine at Sydney’s Star Casino, but escaped conviction due to his good character.
Five towers at Toplace’s Skyview development (pictured) were deemed unsafe for occupancy due to cracks found by building inspectors in 2021.
He told ABC that he didn’t have a drug problem because when he was running his empire he “didn’t have time for that shit.”
In 2022, a Liberal MP used parliamentary privilege to accuse Nassif of paying “significant funds” to a Liberal Party lobbyist to get events approved by a council.
He denied the accusation.
Nassif claimed Lebanese gang members demanded a $6 million bribe from him to lift a stop-work order on a Toplace project and make all his problems with a council “go away.”
Such extortion was widespread in Sydney, he claimed.
‘There are lots of them, [doing] drug trafficking, robbery, forcing people to pay ransom or protection money. You pay, otherwise someone will come and rob you or break your windows,” he told ABC.
He also denied allegations that he fabricated evidence to obtain a $150 million loan from Westpac Bank, which led to Nassif’s arrest warrant.
His daughter Ashlyn has been arrested and faces charges of helping to falsify contracts for the loan.
In his case, Nassif claims that he never received a court order and that he only found out about it through the media.
New South Wales Police told the ABC they have contacted Nassif’s legal team with the allegations and are applying for an Interpol Red Notice, which is a global arrest warrant.
During the interview, Nassif also denied claims made during a court case in Western Australia that he had supplied 10 kilograms of ice.
He said such accusations were just new attempts to “tarnish his name.”
