Note: In the June issue of the Cud, Oliver Pennington offered a tale, Caveat Emptor, drawn from his painful experience buying leather jackets from a scam artist in Sydney. Here, Ewan Kane offers his own, brighter, foray into the world of Sydney's illicit rag trade.

It was with a sense of pity as well as an understanding of what might have been for me that I read Oliver Pennington's recent, bitter account of an encounter with yet another Italian 'fashion executive' trawling the back streets of Sydney for people to suck into their criminal scams.

In early 2000 I was approached in almost identical circumstances to Oliver, and in identical circumstances to the almost several hundred people who have no doubt been approached with this ploy over the years. I was filling my car up with petrol at a BP in Haberfield one April day when I heard a voice query, 'Excuse me, are you Italian?'

I turned to find a slickly dressed man of dark appearance seated in a white Holden Commodore rental. A little taken aback, I for some reason connected him with an individual I might have met before through the family, and answered 'No, I'm Greek, why?'

The Italian man flicked an eyebrow and muttered 'Eh, una fatsa, una ratsa', or something to that effect. Loosely translated, it means 'One face, one race', and while I was familiar with the expression as a phrase of goodwill often exchanged between Mediterranean neighbours Greece and Italy, I was also aware of the fact that the phrase had something of a wise-guy element to it, and was usually confined to use by people of potentially questionable or suspicious character. I remained on guard.

With a wave and a warm smile he motioned me over and produced his E.U passport and an airline ticket dated for departure to Rome that very day. 'My good friend,' he began. 'I am here in Sydney from Italy on fashion show at your Darling Harbour. I work in fashion. You see these fine jackets?'

I glanced into his back seat. Four beautifully crafted Versace leather jackets hung in the rear of his car. I nodded.

'I must leave for Rome this afternoon. I cannot take these with me for I will be taxed heavily. Perhaps I sell them to you? They make very nice gift for yourself, your mother, maybe your friend with nice pussy...?'

Despite his tempting offer that I might score a chick with a 'nice pussy' should I purchase the jackets, I immediately shook my head, warm to the scam that had been hitting the city's streets for weeks now, after a cargo container containing luxury items had reportedly gone missing from the waterfront.

'Here, here, you must see!' He enthusiastically pulled out the jackets and handed them to me for a closer look. They certainly were the real deal- well made, soft, and sweet smelling jackets. He had a bomber jacket, a ladies mid-length jacket and a men's straight cut jacket 'all of them jet black- as well as a brown suede bomber jacket with buttoned cuffs. Very stylish stuff. Very sexy. In a display apparently meant to prove authenticity, the man, who had now introduced himself as 'Sylvio', ran the flame from a lighter across the suede jacket. I nodded approvingly, but truth be told, I was already suitably impressed. They were damn nice jackets. But the fact was, nice as they were 'and stolen as they obviously were- I doubted I'd ever have enough money to pay him what he'd likely be offering, and so I politely told him so, said thank-you for the kind offer, and began to walk back to my car.

'Wait, wait. Come back!' he pleaded.

I stopped and turned.

'For fifteen hundred dollars you can have all four of them! Do you know how much these sell for in a store?' he asked heatedly. 'This is an excellent offer!'

I figured that $1500 probably was a good price for items of this quality, but the fact remained, I didn't have that kind of money.

'Wait, wait! Well... Well what could you afford?' he asked.

'Mate', I explained. 'Look over there at that 1984 Ford Laser with chipped, fading paint I'm driving. You think I've got that kind of money? What I could pay you wouldn't possibly be enough.'

'Stop, hold on! What could you pay me?' he demanded.

'It isn't going to be worth your while for jackets like that, I'm telling you.'

'What could you pay me?' he repeated.

I took a deep breath and tried to remember exactly how much money was left in my oft-empty bank account. After a moment I offered, 'Four hundred bucks.'

Without skipping a beat, despite the fact he'd just, in one swift movement, dropped the price of four jackets worth about seven thousand dollars at retail from $1500 to $400 he calmly spat, 'Okay, we go to your ATM now.'

And so it was, that at 4pm on a Thursday afternoon in Haberfield I found myself wandering up to the ATM with an Italian male wearing a silk suit, leather slip-ons, enough gold to challenge Fort Knox and buying some stolen merchandise. I withdrew the money, paid Sylvio, he handed me the jackets and, in a flash, had disappeared. Hurriedly I checked the bags he had given me. The same items I'd inspected were all, much to my relief, in there. But soon I became horribly paranoid that I'd just been set up in some sort of sting operation by the police in order to trap people in receipt of stolen goods. I slammed on the gas and made swiftly for home, where I grabbed the bags and stashed them as far back into my cupboard as possible.

The next day I wandered down to a boutique in Leichhardt, and later to another one in the city, and was pleased to find that the jackets I'd only yesterday bought for $400 certainly were worth a couple thousand. It all seemed too good to be true, though, and so I resolved to leave the jackets in my cupboard for a good few months so that things might 'cool off' a little. As it stood, Sydney was flooded with men offloading these jackets at the time, and so it was probably a wise move not get drawn into anything should I try to sell them myself. After all, even as I'd decided to keep the straight-cut men's jacket, I had no use for three other jackets in sizes too small for me (and of course, one was designed for a female).

Some nine months later I'd almost forgotten all about the jackets, but for the fact it was winter, and so I'd taken to wearing my new Versace number as a means of keeping the chill away when I'd head out for a night on the town. With almost a year gone since the purchase, I figured it was time to see if I could break even on the buy... and perhaps even make a little more cash. With this in mind, and with any scruples I had left cast aside into the gutter, I chose to prey on the weakest, most gullible friend I had.

I paid a visit to 'Greg' that evening, the suede jacket in tow. Greg had a slight build, and so the 'small' sized jacket would make a perfect fit. I brought it along in a bag with some videos he'd lent me earlier and merely brought the jacket up as an aside... something I merely happened to have with me as I was on my way to see someone else in a few hours that wanted to buy it. Carefully, I began my pitch. It was the middle of winter, I told him. He was a fashionable guy. He loved fine items, and this was a fine item indeed. Why, perhaps he might be interested in trying it on? I shamelessly carried out the cigarette lighter display on the surface of the suede, completely ignorant of what that little trick was meant to be proving, and I gradually saw as his eyes grew wider, and wider with interest. Finally, it came. He asked me how much this jacket, this fine suede Versace jacket with a warm lining and buttoned cuffs would cost. I pondered it briefly, thought of the long, solid friendship I'd shared with Greg, how he'd been there for me through thick and thin, how he was a one in a million mate, and I answered:

'For you? Only $400.'

As I left Greg's house that evening having broken even on my investment with three jackets to spare I realised I'd crossed a threshold point in the goodly status of my character. I realised I had just done something immoral and unconscionable and so I knew instantly what the right thing to do would be.

I would sell the rest of the jackets on ebay.

This selling to friends for profit stuff was just far too messy.

With money to earn, I took some nice photos of the men's bomber and the women's mid-length (which, I might add, featured a lovely tiger print design on the chest and cuffs), set up an ebay account, and filled the two product descriptions with all sorts of bollocks about how these jackets were 'NEVER WORN, STILL IN THE BAG, A-1 GENUINE VERSACE' ... that I was selling them because 'MOVING OVERSEAS, CAN'T AFFORD THE TAX ON THIS QUALITY LUXURY ITEM' ... and threw in phrases like 'PLUSH QUILTED INTERIOR'... and 'DECORATIVE SNAP BUTTONS' to really put on the great sell. Ever greedy and wanting more, I set the reserve price on the bomber jacket auction at AU$800, and the more lavish women's jacket auction at AU$1,000.

And I waited for the auction to end.

Over the next seven days I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Bids flowed in from across Australia and beyond for both jackets. $600, then $800, then $1,000. People were actually going for it. At the end of each auction some guy from Malaysia had purchased the men's jacket for $1200, and the women's piece went to lady in New South Wales for $1500.

It was a crazy result, and I couldn't believe my good fortune.

Guilt? Well, maybe a little for selling to Greg, especially as I never saw him wear the jacket. Not once. Not ever. One day I'm sure I'll come to, do the right thing and pay him the amount back in full. But the ebay buyers? Hell, there's no guilt there! Sure, I may have picked up the jackets from a guy who picked them up from a guy who knew a guy who was the guy that stole them, but each of my customers still paid less for the jackets than they would have at retail. So we're happy all around, no?

As a postscript, some eighteen months after I'd sold everything and was well retired from the leather jacket scam trade I was visiting in Paris and walking along the Champs-Elysse looking like an obvious tourist, my head lost inside a map. As I neared a rotary at the Place de la Concorde a man of Mediterranean appearance in a small mini screeched to a halt and called me over. He had a street directory in his hands and looked confused for directions.

Approaching the car, I couldn't help but notice that he had several leather jackets hanging in the rear. When I was a mere metre away from him he calmly tossed the directory into the back seat and began, 'Sir, I am here on fashion show. I must leave today, and I- '

I snickered and offered him a broad smile.

He glared, 'Oh... You know?'

'Yeah', I nodded. 'I know all about it.'

'Okay, sorry' he offered and sped off into the Paris traffic.

The scam was obviously in good form across the globe, but I'd had my run at it, and was one of the fortunate few to get out ahead.