Swindling the valet
A man has been charged with stealing a $500,000 McLaren at Crown Melbourne.
I gave them the valet ticket and they said, no you took it at 3am.”
“I gave them the valet ticket and they said, no you took it at 3am,” the vehicle’s driver, Johnny Nahlous, said.
The thief obtained the car from the casino’s valet around said hour Sunday morning, leaving the driver in shock. Thankfully, authorities were able to track the car’s location and arrest the brazen owner impersonator.
Grand theft auto at Crown Melbourne
Police determined the car had traveled to West Footscray, a city on the West side of Melbourne near the bottom of continental Australia. Upon their arrival, they arrested a 43-year-old man accused of illegally retrieving the vehicle from the valet.
The car is property of Honeymoon Car Hire, a Sydney-based rental service. The company is not happy with Crown Melbourne’s lackadaisical valet system in which someone willingly turned the keys over to a person not in charge of the vehicle. As a result, Honeymoon has said it is readying its lawyers against the casino.
“There’s damage to the interior, the engine, and we have pictures of that as well,” Honeymoon Car Hire representative Georgia Hunter said. “We will be seeking legal action in due course with Crown.”
An ongoing investigation
Police say the culprit is a native of Lismore, a city just south of Brisbane along the country’s East Coast. He was charged with theft of a motor vehicle and will go before Melbourne Magistrates Court on October 17.
In conjunction with the arrest, police are still investigating the theft. A spokesperson for Crown said it is assisting police in their pursuit of justice.
we take security matters extremely seriously”
“We take security matters extremely seriously and we have commenced an internal investigation as a matter of priority,” said the Crown representative.
Crown Melbourne opened in 1994 before relocating and re-opening in mid-1997. It has over 1,600 guest rooms and licenses for 540 table games and 2,500 poker machines.