Penthouse Syndicate adds two more names to growing charge sheet, as former NAB, Commonwealth Bank employee faces 19 counts
In the early hours of Tuesday, financial crimes squad detectives arrested a Wentworth Point couple whose alleged roles in the so-called Penthouse Syndicate illustrate the criminal organisation's core operating model: place trusted professionals inside the transaction chain, then use their institutional knowledge to systematically defeat the systems designed to stop exactly this kind of fraud.
Huy Tin Nguyen, 34, a former NAB and Commonwealth Bank employee, faces 19 counts of dishonestly obtaining financial benefit by deception plus a charge of participating in a criminal group – covering what police allege was approximately $31 million in fraudulent mortgages and business loans.
His wife, Thu Huong Nguyen, 35, a licensed mortgage broker operating through her company HTN Finance Pty Ltd, has been charged with three counts of dishonestly obtaining financial benefit by deception, one count of attempting to do the same, and a participating-in-a-criminal-group charge, relating to almost $13 million in alleged loan fraud.
Both were refused bail and are expected to appear at Burwood Local Court this Wednesday.
They are the 26th and 27th people charged under Strike Force Myddleton.
A syndicate that has consistently targeted professionals
The Penthouse Syndicate has been alleged by NSW Police to have defrauded Australia's major banks of more than $250 million.
The NSW Crime Commission has restrained $95 million in assets linked to alleged syndicate members, including properties, cash, vehicles and luxury goods.
What distinguishes the syndicate's alleged methodology, and what the Nguyen arrests reinforce, is its recruitment strategy. Rather than relying on conventional falsification of documents, police allege the group systematically recruited or corrupted professionals at every stage of the property finance transaction – with each insider adding a layer of institutional knowledge the previous one could not provide.
The pattern that investigators have pieced together reads as a deliberate construction: NAB senior business banking manager Timotius 'Donny’ Sungkar was charged in November 2025 with facilitating approximately $10 million in fraudulent business loans by fast-tracking applications for shell companies.
Andrew W. Hu – a former NAB and Commonwealth Bank employee who had become a mortgage broker – was charged in December 2025 with allegedly helping the syndicate secure close to $100 million in fraudulent mortgage and business loans.
Solicitor Elic Tang was charged in April 2026 over more than $25 million in alleged fraudulent property transactions, becoming the first legal professional charged under the operation. And now, with the Nguyens' arrest, the syndicate's banker-and-broker configuration is again on display.
Detective Superintendent Gordon Arbinja, commander of the Financial Crimes Squad, made the professional-facilitator dimension explicit in his statement on Tuesday. "These corrupt insiders undermine the integrity of Australia's lending system, and without their involvement, fraud on this scale simply wouldn't be possible," he said.
The specific allegations
Huy Tin Nguyen's employment history is central to the police case, even though the charges themselves do not relate to his time working at the banks.
According to court documents obtained during this masthead's investigation, he worked as a business banker at NAB from February 2017 to April 2021. He was subsequently employed at Commonwealth Bank, which terminated him in March 2023 after an internal investigation substantiated misconduct claims – a dismissal not reflected on his LinkedIn profile.
Police allege that after leaving the banks, Nguyen used his knowledge of their internal processes and fraud-detection algorithms to assist the syndicate. Working alongside alleged ringleaders Li and Anya Phan, and fellow alleged key member Andrew W. Hu, he is alleged to have helped orchestrate 14 fraudulent home loan applications to NAB – generating more than $75 million – between April 2024 and July 2025, and 15 fraudulent business loans worth almost $15 million between August 2024 and June 2025.
He allegedly used the handle ‘T nike’ in group chats with the ringleaders. In court documents, he is further accused of managing a network of mortgage brokers who were rotated regularly to avoid detection.
Thu Huong Nguyen's alleged involvement runs through her brokerage. Police allege that through HTN Finance, she acted as broker on a syndicate mortgage to purchase one half of a Dover Heights duplex for close to $13 million in February 2025. The loan was managed by Timotius Sungkar, who was himself charged separately last year. Anya Phan subsequently purchased the other half of the duplex – through her company, Phan Holding Group Pty Ltd – for $13.75 million in June.
Regulatory scrutiny intensifies
The arrests arrive at a moment of heightened regulatory focus on the broker channel.
AUSTRAC has ordered ten banks to hand over mortgage data as part of a broader fraud investigation. MPA has reported on AUSTRAC's sector-wide data request, with some estimates suggesting the scale of suspected home loan fraud across the industry could be at least double what has been publicly disclosed.
MPA has also reported on the collapse of Hai Money, a sub-aggregator whose downfall was triggered by Andrew Hu's December 2025 arrest and the subsequent discovery that 14 of its brokers were under investigation – leaving more than 200 legitimate brokers immediately without a path to market.
The clean brokers in that story – the majority who had no connection to the alleged fraud – are the industry's collateral damage in real time. Every broker who loses their aggregator relationship, every lender that tightens its verification requirements in the wake of these arrests, and every application that takes longer to process because the bank's fraud-detection protocols have been recalibrated is a downstream consequence of what police allege the syndicate has done to the system.
Detective Superintendent Arbinja signalled on Tuesday that Strike Force Myddleton is not done.
"Our focus is now shifting toward professional facilitators – the bankers, brokers, lawyers and accountants who enable this type of offending," he said.
The Nguyens remain in custody until Friday, when they are expected to apply for bail. The alleged ringleaders Li, Phan and Hu are yet to enter pleas.
