Stolen Identity: The Nannup Four Mystery

0:00It's March 30th. This is Sydney News today, your AI-powered local news. In mid-2009, British salesman Simon Cadwell Kelly got pulled aside by border officers while driving off a ferry from France. They grilled him for hours about a trip to Australia he never took, then showed him a photo of a wanted man using his name. Turns out it was his old buddy Gary Felton, who stole Simon's birth certificate back in the 1980s and built a whole new life down under. Felton turned Simon's identity into a passport and jetted off to Australia in the 1990s. He set up as a reclusive spiritual guru in southwest Western Australia running an online forum called The Gateway that drew followers worldwide. Living with him were follower Tony Poppick plus Shantel McDougal, a woman 17 years younger and her young daughter Lila. In July 2007, all four vanished without a trace from their isolated town. Shantel had told family they were heading to Brazil, but no sign of them leaving Australia

1:02or anywhere else since. Australian cops issued an interpol alert under Simon's stolen name, which is what snagged him at the UK border. Simon faced chaos from the theft fake medical records, property buys in his name, even doctors doubting his own health history. He never reported the original theft, thinking it was minor, but it exploded into this mess. Now he travels with stacks of proof docs and even changed his legal name to escape the fallout. Identity theft pro say, it's an endless grind with no quick fix. Victims chase banks and agencies forever since the infos out there. Simon urges locking down your papers tight and questioning anyone asking for details. This saga still unfolding in Australia's baffling Nanop 4 case, leaving more questions than answers.