A 26-year-old Warwick man has been charged with multiple offences over an alleged ‘cash for demerit points’ scheme he ran for three years to help drivers avoid more than 200 infringement notices.

Police allege the man advertised on social media that he would accept other people’s fines and demerit points for payment. After nominating himself as the offending driver, he would then steal a third party’s identity and sign the infringement notice off to them.

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Describing it as an “illegal business enterprise,” police say the scheme involved more than 200 camera-detected offence notices worth approximately $141,000 in fines and 695 demerit points.

The man was arrested by road policing officers on August 8 and was charged with one count of carrying on the business of fraud, attempting to pervert the course of justice, and three counts of obtaining identification information.

“People may see this sort of thing as a victimless crime, but the demerit point penalty system is in place to ensure that drivers who commit offences on the road are incentivised to improve their driving behaviour,” Acting Chief Superintendent Janelle Andrews said.

Andrews said many of the people who contacted the alleged offender were young, inexperienced drivers.