One Of The BIGGEST Dealership THIEVES Is Finally Caught, But Wasn't So Far Away All Along...

One the most bizarre and, frankly, cruel automotive stories we've heard in quite some time happened this past year. Essentially, it involved a scumbag dealer representative and an opportunity that was essentially created by high-end sports cars and their limited availability.

It's not something, in my opinion, that can be blamed on the automaker. But, it did create the perfect storm for something like this to happen.

We all know that Porsche's GT cars (GT3, GT3RS, GT2, GT2RS) are some of the most desired vehicles on the planet. And given the low production numbers and craziness of the Porsche market, dealers can be the gatekeepers.

Shiraaz Sookralli's story is a simple one: He created a shell company, bilked folks who wanted a Porsche GT car for deposits and then blew just about all of the money, which was north of $2MM bucks.

Turns out the story has a happy — depending how you define that — ending. He was caught earlier in 2019 and all of the folks who were involved were "made whole." Essentially, Champion Porsche either refunded their deposits or applied what was lost to a new vehicle.

The weird bit? It sounds like he was caught in South Florida. He didn't skip town because the money had already been spent.

...The big unanswered question is where exactly Sookralli has been hiding since September. There was immediate speculation that he had fled the country, since $2 million can get you past the reach of an extradition treaty. But it seems Sookralli never left south Florida—after all, the money was gone. The complaint was submitted on February 14 and immediately sealed because making it public "may cause suspect to flee in order to avoid apprehension, may cause the destruction of physical evidence, and may cause the further dissipation of victim car purchaser's funds." It's somewhat boilerplate language, but a hint nonetheless.

Sookralli remains in custody, and his next court appearance will take place on Friday during his bond hearing. His attorney Howard Schumacher told the Sun-Sentinel that his client hopes to be free by the weekend...

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PUGPROUD - 4/8/2019 8:14:48 AM

+1 Boost

Champion is a well known dealer and stepped up and made good on all the deposits...it took responsibility and made it right for their customers. good for them.

MDarringer - 4/8/2019 8:30:12 AM

-1 Boost

They are run by incompetents if you believe their BS stance in the article and THAT alone would be sufficient reason NOT to do business with them. Porsche should pull their franchise over this.

MDarringer - 4/8/2019 8:29:09 AM

+1 Boost

Champion Porsche is to blame for supposedly not knowing what was happening under its nose, but I don't for a second believe they were clueless. The red flags were many and the dealer chose to ignore them.

The attitude of the Porsche dealer we sold our interest in was that the customers were rich, so pad the bill in any way possible. There was a scorn for rich people behind the scenes that was unprofessional. Then there is the noblesse oblige of rich people who believe their wealth protects and indemnifies them from the hijinks of the lesser people. By extension, this same scorn looks to screw over people of average means too.

The part of the article that says the dealer had no idea what he was doing is not credible at all. Buyers were also stupid for their greed but their greedy stupidity does not make it OK to scam them. This floors me: "...Sookralli hadn't been reporting any of his sales to the dealership's sales manager..." How can you run a business and not know what each "division" is doing? If a business ran that way it would be insolvent or up to its neck in lawsuits. I suspect that Champion Porsche is much more shady than incompetent and not paying attention to business stance they are taking.

Whenever we take money in any form for a sale, lease, or deposit, at least three people are present: the customer, the finance associate, and a manager so that the transaction is fully witnessed.

Agent00R - 4/8/2019 9:39:06 AM

+2 Boost

Thank you for your POV, Matt!

I agree with you that it's very peculiar how someone can be employed in a sales role yet not report their business/transactions and that's OK. Weird, at best.

dumpsty - 4/8/2019 11:40:22 AM

+2 Boost

This article made me wonder what kind of transactions were taking place? Was the customer just writing a deposit check to the salesman? Wasn't there a finance officer involved to provide confirmations, paperwork?

However the transactions were done, the salesman knew the system & kept the customers out of the normal process.

And I'd like to know what dude spent $2mln on?

Agent00R - 4/8/2019 1:01:27 PM

+2 Boost

@dumpsty

The story — or at least the link within it — explains how the alleged fraudster went about it.

Basically he set up a dummy shell company called Champion Autosport and crafted dummy paperwork to make customers believe their vehicle was being built. Even came up with phony tracking numbers that customers were trying to track in Porsche's database.

qwertyfla1 - 4/8/2019 8:48:28 AM

+2 Boost

I bought many limited production Porsches (996TT, Carrera GT) from Champion when I lived in Fort Liquerdale and always had smooth transactions. This would never of happened under Don Skuta's watch when he was GM but he is now based in Beverly Hills so who knows but it is hard to believe that this many people could be scammed and management didn't know shit. Time to clean the office and make them walk the plank!

skytop - 4/10/2019 1:10:56 PM

+1 Boost

The dealership (Champion) was NOT thieving anything. It was a thieving salesman who was the criminal.

Additionally, Champion Porsche graciously refunding the stolen deposit funds to victim customers that the criminal salesman had taken from them.