Porsche Salesman Accused Of Stealing $2.5 Million From Dealership

Customers came to Shiraaz Sookralli to put down deposits for the 911 GT3 and GT3 RS. Their money is now gone.

Champion Porsche, based in Pompano Beach, Florida, claims to be America’s number one Porsche dealership, but is now facing a scandal of possibly epic proportions. According to Automotive News, around two dozen customers placed deposits for the latest 911 GT3 and GT3 RS track-focused sports cars only to have their money allegedly stolen by the dealership’s vice president of marketing, Shiraaz Sookralli, and his wife Vimla Sookralli.

The pair has since disappeared with a combined $2.5 million worth of deposits. Champion Porsche filed a lawsuit earlier this month naming the duo and the fake Champion Autosport, a shell company created by Sookralli, as defendants.

Sookralli, who according to the lawsuit, worked for the dealership for around a decade, started a fraudulent scheme that presented buyers with bogus buyer deposit agreements that, in reality, “failed to include any manufacturer or allocation information regarding the vehicles he was purportedly selling and contained false and fraudulent seller information.” In other words, Sookralli used these fake agreements to get buyers to believe they were buying Porsches that simply did not exist.

Furthermore, Sookralli never even placed orders for any of the vehicles. Instead, he pocketed the money and then deposited it into the bank account of the aforementioned shell company, Champion Autosport. He then transferred the money from Champion Autosport to his personal bank account.

Champion Porsche, however, claims it contacted Sookralli via email, who “identified twenty-four transactions in his scheme to defraud the plaintiff and consumers. The amount of funds Shiraaz admitted to receiving is $2,560,198,” according to the injunction to freeze the fake bank account. However, many of the Sookralli’s victims are not buying the dealership’s claim it knew nothing of the scheme. Sookralli disappeared late last month.

The Drive is also reporting that this isn’t the first time Sookralli has done something like this. Last February, he was sued by M&L Luxury Cars over another scam involving two 911Rs, each worth $500,000. One of the cars was ordered through Champion Porsche while the second was through what’s likely another shell company, Rampage Motors, Inc.

The first 911R was never delivered, despite a $350,000 deposit. The second one, however, was delivered to the buyers, only it had a $350,000 markup. Not surprisingly, Champion Porsche was named as a co-defendant in that lawsuit which, again, raises questions as to what it knew about Sookralli’s shenanigans. So why did Sookralli decide to become a criminal when, in all likelihood, he would be caught one day? Well, the guy has 10 kids. That’s a lot of hungry mouths to feed.

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Porsche Salesman Accused Of Stealing $2.5 Million From Dealership

Customers came to Shiraaz Sookralli to put down deposits for the 911 GT3 and GT3 RS. Their money is now gone.

Champion Porsche, based in Pompano Beach, Florida, claims to be America’s number one Porsche dealership, but is now facing a scandal of possibly epic proportions. According to Automotive News, around two dozen customers placed deposits for the latest 911 GT3 and GT3 RS track-focused sports cars only to have their money allegedly stolen by the dealership’s vice president of marketing, Shiraaz Sookralli, and his wife Vimla Sookralli.

The pair has since disappeared with a combined $2.5 million worth of deposits. Champion Porsche filed a lawsuit earlier this month naming the duo and the fake Champion Autosport, a shell company created by Sookralli, as defendants.

Sookralli, who according to the lawsuit, worked for the dealership for around a decade, started a fraudulent scheme that presented buyers with bogus buyer deposit agreements that, in reality, “failed to include any manufacturer or allocation information regarding the vehicles he was purportedly selling and contained false and fraudulent seller information.” In other words, Sookralli used these fake agreements to get buyers to believe they were buying Porsches that simply did not exist.

Furthermore, Sookralli never even placed orders for any of the vehicles. Instead, he pocketed the money and then deposited it into the bank account of the aforementioned shell company, Champion Autosport. He then transferred the money from Champion Autosport to his personal bank account.

Champion Porsche, however, claims it contacted Sookralli via email, who “identified twenty-four transactions in his scheme to defraud the plaintiff and consumers. The amount of funds Shiraaz admitted to receiving is $2,560,198,” according to the injunction to freeze the fake bank account. However, many of the Sookralli’s victims are not buying the dealership’s claim it knew nothing of the scheme. Sookralli disappeared late last month.

The Drive is also reporting that this isn’t the first time Sookralli has done something like this. Last February, he was sued by M&L Luxury Cars over another scam involving two 911Rs, each worth $500,000. One of the cars was ordered through Champion Porsche while the second was through what’s likely another shell company, Rampage Motors, Inc.

The first 911R was never delivered, despite a $350,000 deposit. The second one, however, was delivered to the buyers, only it had a $350,000 markup. Not surprisingly, Champion Porsche was named as a co-defendant in that lawsuit which, again, raises questions as to what it knew about Sookralli’s shenanigans. So why did Sookralli decide to become a criminal when, in all likelihood, he would be caught one day? Well, the guy has 10 kids. That’s a lot of hungry mouths to feed.

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Boss Accused Of Taking $75M From Faraday Future For Kid's Trust Fund

Faraday Future's own boss could be looking to profit from his company's consistent mishandling of cash.

The auto industry is such a wild, dynamic, and twisted place that even a short ride through it will run some ragged and drive others to madness. Faraday Future, it seems, has found itself in the latter camp after being faced with a mountain of lawsuits and controversy that threatens to undermine the entire operation. And now there’s this: a story from The Verge that uncovers what now looks more like a shady operation going on behind a facade of eco intentions and tech-savvy disruptors than an aspiring automaker.

It’s not that Faraday Future had bad intensions from the start (though there’s not a line of people coming to FF’s defense), but its practice of mismanaging money seems to be bringing it an onslaught of trouble that can only lead to one place: catastrophic failure. Not every FF member is supposed to go down in flames, however. According to accusations outlined in the report, FF’s main source of funding, a man by the name of Jia Yueting (YT for short), may have taken cash from his own company for personal gain. For Faraday Future, YT has been more than just an investor. His cash has come with strings attached, which he's used to play a close role in the development process.

Sometimes too close, according to some employees that have claimed his constant intervention in the design and development process once led FF to miss an important reveal at the CES show in Las Vegas to accommodate changes he had ordered on the car. However, critique seems to be the norm for YT. So much so that he has filed a lawsuit against a software programmer by the name of Gu Yingqiong—a man who makes frequent accusations and has gone as far as to call Faraday Future a “Ponzi scheme”—for his latest allegation: that YT used cash from Faraday Future’s bank account for personal gain.

Whether or not that’s true remains to be seen, but Yingqiong claims that YT was trying to set himself up to benefit from Faraday Future’s coffers by creating a $75 million trust fund for his children using money meant to bring us the FF91 EV. It seems that the courts will have to determine if Yingqiong is actually slandering YT's name or if the accusations are true, but it’s yet another piece of Faraday Future’s story that makes the company seem as if it’s doomed to fail before it builds its first production car.

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