Adrian Colbert used Facebook Marketplace to trick people into thinking he'd bought their cars, but he never paid for them.
A “career” criminal is back behind bars for dishonesty after he duped people into handing over their vehicles in a Facebook scam.
A police prosecutor said during Adrian Colbert’s sentencing in Tauranga that he seemed to offend “very well and very easily” and was sceptical that another stint in prison would deter him from his “chosen career path”.
According to the police summary of facts, the 31-year-old used several aliases on Facebook Marketplace, including “Age Edward”, “Lorenzo Matthews”, “Adrian Edwards” and “Adrian James”.
Between July and December last year, he used the social media platform to deceive people into thinking he had bought the cars they had listed for sale in Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland and Tauranga.
The cars included a Nissan Skyline, Toyota Aqua, Suzuki Swift, Honda CR-V, Toyota 86, Subaru Impreza, Holden Colorado, Volkswagen Golf, Volkswagen Polo and Mazda CX5.
The Colorado and Golf were both “purchased” on the same day in November last year, both in Tauranga.
Colbert would negotiate, agree a price and, when he turned up to collect the cars, would show the seller fake or altered bank statements as proof that he had transferred money for them.
When the sellers went to check their accounts after Colbert had left, the money would not be there.
They would chase him up, and he would either make excuses or not respond.
While he mostly targeted people selling cars, he also duped someone who was selling an iPhone 15.
None of the 10 cars was recovered, nor the iPhone, and the total amount owed to the victims, based on what Colbert had agreed to pay for each car, was nearly $125,000.
Despite this, no reparation orders were made at sentencing, given the unrealistic prospect of Colbert being able to make payments. His lawyer told the court he already owed $63,000 in reparations.
Colbert also deceived people looking to buy through Marketplace.
He advertised a Dyson vacuum cleaner and a Samsung Galaxy Fold 6 for sale, promising to post them once payment was received.
But he never did.
In August last year, he rented a three-bedroom Airbnb for a couple of nights in Porirua.
One of the rooms was locked, but Colbert found a way in.
He stole $300 headphones, cash in a range of currencies, including euros, pounds, yen and Singapore dollars, and about $200 in mixed coins.
Last November, he checked into the Novotel Auckland Airport Hotel, paying part of the $379 owed when he arrived.
While he was there, he racked up more on his account through dining, drinks and extra nights at the hotel.
By the end, he owed $995. When he checked out, he told staff he couldn’t afford the amount due and left without making any attempt to pay.
Colbert pleaded guilty to the raft of charges, the bulk of which were “obtains by deception”, and was sentenced in the Tauranga District Court last week.
Judge Thomas Ingram said Colbert had obtained a “great deal of money” by deception, and he had a “long and bad record at 31 years of age”.
“You’ve been involved in [this type] of offending fairly consistently since you first started appearing in courts back in 2016.”
He had amassed a “huge number” of convictions in that time, and his record ran to a “solid eight pages”, nearly all of which involved obtaining by deception with a “sprinkling of failing to comply with court orders and breach of release conditions and the like”.
Judge Ingram said it “seems to be the life you have led for over a decade now”.
The scale of the offending and time over which it occurred led to an “inescapable conclusion” of a prison sentence.
Colbert’s lawyer, Jaiden Manera, sought a starting point of two and a half years’ imprisonment.
He pointed to Colbert’s engagement in a restorative justice conference as indicative of some remorse and advocated for minimal increases for previous offending.
He pointed to drug abuse as an underlying cause for the offending.
However, Judge Ingram agreed with police that a higher starting point of three and a half years was appropriate.
Sergeant Richard van Arendonk had earlier remarked that this was “generous” for Colbert.
“The amount of offending he’s done, and that’s just what we’ve caught him for,” van Arendonk said.
“He’s a seasoned campaigner. I don’t think anything is going to make much difference for him in his chosen career path. He seems to do it very well and very easily.”
Judge Ingram imposed a six-month uplift for Colbert’s previous offending, and a further three months because he offended while on parole.
That led to a sentence of four years and three months, but Colbert was given a 15-month credit for his guilty plea and remorse.
He was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and was not given leave to apply for home detention.
The judge said it was not a case where he had any “realistic hope” that Colbert would pay “even one dollar” of reparation, given his record and the amount of reparation outstanding. Therefore, no reparation orders were made.
Tauranga’s Area Response Manager, Senior Sergeant Scott Merritt, said Colbert was a “prolific scammer” and police were pleased to hear justice has been served with a three-year prison sentence.
He urged the public to be aware of online scams, particularly through Facebook Marketplace, and take precautions:
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.