Luxury Sydney designer in court on fraud charges after global business wound up owing $8m

For almost a decade, Adriana Benhamou Weiss decorated the mansions of Australian multi-millionaires, designed hotels and apartment developments in Paris, Moscow, and the French Riviera and luxury properties in Israel and the Middle East.

With her mother Helene Benhamou, a Moroccan-born stylist and entertainer, she would fly off to see clients in Singapore, London, Monaco, New York and Riyadh, Dubai and Bahrain, advising them on antiques, furniture and high-end interiors.

When she wasn’t working on a Russian oligarch’s hunting lodge or the opulent refurbishment of a property on the Cote D’Azur, Adriana Weiss was a member of the Sydney social set. 

But Ms Weiss’s luxury life appears to have all come crashing down this week, when the 40-year-old Eastern Suburbs mother faced the Downing Centre Local Court on multiple fraud charges.

Ms Weiss’s Benhamou designs had been enlisted to decorate the trophy oceanfront home Deauvile (above) of multi millionaire Nevile Crichton and his wife Nadi but furniture never arrived

 Based in the Eastern suburbs, Ms Weiss was friends with home loan multi-millionaire ‘Aussie’ John Symond’s wife Amber Symond and wealthy jeweller Alina Barlow. 

 She regularly appeared in Vogue magazine, and was friendly with socialites and glamorous identities including Ellie Aitken, luxury brand PR Roxy Jacenko and Vogue Australia editor, Edwina McCann.

Ms Weiss has been charged with directing an employee to falsify books relating to payments to six different design services in four currencies equivalent to hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

In total, there are 12 charges of ‘conceal, destroy, mutilate or falsify securities or books’.

The charges follow the liquidation of Ms Weiss and her mother’s company Benhamou Designs, wound up by Ferrier Hodgson and owing $8.11m. 

Ms Weiss’s mother has since rebranded herself as Helene in Paris and decamped to Europe where she has released YouTube videos singing French romance classics such as Je Ne Regrette Rien.

Neville Crichton and his wife Nadi (above) sought a luxury refurbish of their new $45m Point Piper mansion after their 2017 marriage and hired the services of Adriana Weiss

Neville and Nadi Crichton sought out the designer help of Adriana Weiss after their 2017 marriage and purchase of the $45m Point Piper trophy home (above) they bought next door to former PM Malcolm Turnbull

The falsifications alleged by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) all took place in late 2016, prior to the liquidation of Benhamnou Designs. 

The liquidation report says Weiss blamed the failure of her company to ‘poor business management’ and ‘significant disputes with customers and suppliers’.

One dispute was with multi-millionaire yachtsman and luxury car importer Neville Crichton over supply of furniture for the $45m waterfront Point Piper mansion he bought in late 2017.  

 Mr Crichton sought to buy the furniture after the then 71-year-old, nicknamed ‘Croaky’, married 38-year-old Nadi Hasandedic, a former Christian Dior boutique manager earlier in the same year.

The furniture order never arrived at trophy home Deauville, which is next door to former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s house, and Ms Weiss reportedly blamed ‘supplier issues’. 

Court documents seen by Daily Mail Australia allege Ms Weiss ‘engaged in conduct that resulted in the falsification of’ receipts, international transfers and a purchase order in US dollars, Euro, Australian dollars and United Arab Emirates dirham.

Multi millionaire luxury car dealer Neville Crichton and wife Nadi hired Benhamou after their 2017 marriage (above, left), but Adriana Weiss’s (above, right) global luxury designer business went into liquidation owing $8.11m

ASIC alleges records were created showing payments which actually were never made to Parisian design company Petite Friture, Australian interior designer Kathy Kuo, and local or overseas furniture, building and flooring companies. 

Nadi Crichton had sought out Adrian Weiss’s advice for Deauville to replace her husband’s taste in furniture with something more stylish, but has since enlisted the help of luxury interior architecture consultant, Blainey North.

Ms Weiss’s court case, which is being prosecuted by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions on behalf of ASIC, has been adjourned to later this year.