A grandmother will spend a year behind bars after scamming four people, including her best friend, out of $382,000, all to fund a gambling problem.
Viviana Leonor Varas, 63, learned her fate on Thursday in Sydney’s Downing Center Local Court after admitting to the elaborate scam she carried out from September 2016 to March 2021.
Varas had told his victims that his great-great-grandfather had created a trust in the United States and urged them to invest.
Her web of lies also led her to falsely tell her victims that she had cancer, that she was a former Wall Street stockbroker and that her mother had died during the Covid pandemic.
Varas’s best friend, whom she met in 2016 while living in the same building in Pyrmont, gave her $145,000 over two years that she thought was going to be invested.
When the friend finally asked for her money back, Varas gave her a check for $104,000.
Viviana Leonor Varas, 63, learned her fate on Thursday in Sydney’s Downing Center Local Court after admitting to the elaborate scam she carried out from September 2016 to March 2021.
But the check was rejected and Varas told him to contact his attorney, who told him he didn’t do “that kind of work.”
The friend reported Varas to police in 2018, saying she had befriended her and her family and even knitted clothes for her children.
‘She really integrated into my life and said you’re like a daughter to me. “She just groomed me and at my most vulnerable moment,” she told the court, news.com.au reported.
Varas had also lied to her friend and told her that she was undergoing cancer treatment.
The grandmother met another of his victims at the Star Casino about 10 years ago.
She became friends with her and the woman sent her $100,000 in total to invest.
‘It makes you feel really stupid. She says she’s a billionaire and then when I talked to her best friend’s family, she was just poor. She’s done this to a lot of people,” the victim told the publication outside court.
Varas swindled almost $400,000 from four victims, but a court heard she has shown little remorse for her actions.
Another victim also met Varas at the same casino and lost a total of $27,000 to the scammer after she claimed to be an “investor” while making $1,000 bets at the poker table.
Three of his victims had been present in court for Varas’ sentencing, but the fourth decided not to attend.
He and his wife lost $105,000 of their savings and moved to regional New South Wales. The victim said his wife had had “suicidal thoughts” after the ordeal.
When Varas’s web of lies finally unraveled, the court heard her long-term partner, her children and grandchildren cut ties with her.
Magistrate Christine Haskett said Varas had shown no remorse for his crimes.
The magistrate told the court that she did not suffer from cancer or that her mother had died, and that she had “little idea of the harm” she had caused her victims.
Varas had also told police that his victims knew of his gambling habits, but denied that he was addicted.
His lawyer had attempted to argue that he had stage one lung cancer in 2015, however this was ignored by Magistrate Haskett as Varas had claimed he was receiving treatment in 2020.
‘Lies about family trusts; He lies that he worked on Wall Street. Documents that were promised but never produced. “He told people that he was organizing the funeral of his mother and that she is still alive,” the magistrate said.
Varas was ordered to pay back every dollar he had swindled, but the court heard he has no assets.
He will be able to leave prison in May of next year.