Employee Victorio Godoy stole almost $190k from Illawarra Toyota

But the Filipino accountant had a secret sideline that was pumping up his income, big time.

Godoy, 30, of Dapto, awaits sentencing on 17 dishonesty charges, after he was found to have siphoned almost $190,000 from Illawarra Toyota over a 15-month period.

Police documents considered by Wollongong Local Court on Tuesday show Godoy used the names of genuine customers, taken from Illawarra Toyota's database, as aliases on three bank accounts that in fact belonged to him.

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Godoy confessed to his manager the morning of May 23, only after those bank accounts were frozen and his crimes were sure to come to light. He claimed he needed the money to pay for an expensive operation his sick mother was to undergo in the Philippines. He said $5000 of the money had gone towards his recent wedding in his homeland.

Illawarra Toyota quickly unearthed evidence of six illegal transactions showing sums of between $5500 and $30,000 - more than $100,000 in total - had walked out the door between January 18 and the morning of Godoy's confession.

The company reported the matter to police after Godoy tried but - with his accounts frozen - failed to return the most recent of those payments - a $15,800 sum.

Godoy initially told police he thought the payments were rightly made to him as commission from Illawarra Toyota. But he "could not explain" why there was a different alias attached to each transaction.

Police later learned of another 12 transactions showing Godoy had stolen sums of between $1200-$10,000 from October to January.

Police allege Godoy transferred $29,426.29 of that money to an account belonging to his sister, Maria Trongco, again using different customer details from Illawarra Toyota's database.

Ms Trongco has been charged with five counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception, and is due to appear at Albion Park Local Court later this month.

Another $3000 went into the account of an ex-girlfriend of Godoy's, while $136,548.90 went into his own accounts.

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Godoy is charged with 17 counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception.

A further charge of embezzling as a clerk relates to $20,000 cash that went missing from $84,282.46 Godoy was tasked with delivering to St George's Shellharbour branch on May 8.

The court heard Illawarra Toyota spent $8000 sponsoring Godoy to work in Australia under a temporary skills shortage Visa. He started work in February 2022 as a deal costing clerk before being promoted to accountant in October 2022. He earned a wage of $65,000.

The matter was adjourned on Tuesday to allow for the preparation of a sentencing assessment report.

Godoy is to return to court on August 18.

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