A fake tradie who fleeced customers off by more than $280k will be deported to Tonga after inflicting shoddy and incomplete work on vulnerable homeowners’ properties in Sydney and Wollongong.
Tevita Ungounga launched a charitable website where people who were interested can buy tickets, and the first prize is cash or a house built by him.
The unlicensed tradie did this online business marketing while spending time behind bars.
His sentence comes after he had faced 50 charges from fraud to illegal work, and was put behind bars for breaching his bail by doing more unlicensed and uninsured jobs.
Ungounga destroyed a man’s house and drained his life savings in one of the worst cases seen on A Current Affair has been exposed as a father who regularly attends church with his family.
Ungounga is well known to Fair Trading and New South Wales Police, but despite multiple public warnings and convictions, the 55-year-old from Moorebank has continued to work and left some homeowners in financial ruin.
One of his victims, Ian O’Connor from Illawong, gave Ungounga $235,000 to build a seawall and renovate his quaint home, Australia’s 9Now reported.
The 68-year-old was left with holes in his walls, unfinished rooms, and two years on still has no running water.
“He’s a pig, a disgusting pig,” Mr O’Connor said.
“He seemed quite nice, very friendly, but I guess you could say most conmen are.”
