Five leaders of a charitable organisation have been prosecuted for their role in using applications for donation tax credits with intent to obtain a pecuniary advantage.
See the story here: Church leaders sentenced on tax fraud charges

Fraud Week is the perfect time to start discussions amongst peers, co-workers, executives and stakeholders in your community about how important fraud prevention is to society as a whole.

Check out the Fraud Week website for ideas of what you can do, events and resources available to help promote the fraud prevention message.

Chief executive’s ‘trail of horror’ includes fraud, debts and drink-driving.

A Chief Executive had committed fraud, been charged with drink-driving, faced a restraining order, and owed millions of dollars, yet he got a top job at one of Christchurch’s most important companies.

Read about it here

Seven criminal charges involving hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer funds have been laid in court by the Ministry of Social Development, over alleged abuse of the wage subsidy scheme.

Charges relating to the seven cases have now been filed in the Auckland, Waitākere, Christchurch and Hāwera district courts and range from receiving, dishonestly taking or using a document and forgery.

One person pleaded guilty in February and repaid over $18,000. They are due to be sentenced later this year.

Read more about this here.

The Serious Fraud Office is investigating an options and investment company which went into liquidation in June last year.

Options Trading and Investments NZ was put into liquidation on June 20 with liquidator Damien Grant from Waterstone Insolvency indicating creditors faced substantial losses.

The company’s sole director is Tiavare Richard Curtis Joseph​, but the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said Joseph was also known by the name Ritchie Wineera​.

The SO has called for anyone who had had dealings with Joseph, or the company, who had information that could be relevant to the investigation to contact it.

Read more about this here.

A massive leak of millions of documents has exposed the secret offshore financial arrangements of the world's rich and powerful, including billionaires, political leaders, celebrities, sports stars, and public officials.

Launching today, The Pandora Papers is a major international investigation by dozens of media outlets including the New Zealand Herald that reveals how wealthy elites used complex offshore structures – including New Zealand-based trusts – to shelter assets and move money around the globe.

Among the prominent figures whose financial arrangements have been exposed are 35 country leaders including the King of Jordan, around 330 politicians and high-level public officials, and 133 billionaires.

Believed to be the biggest data leak in history, the Pandora Papers will intensify international debate about the enormous scale of offshore finance at a time of rising concern about economic inequality.

Read the full article here. 

Wellington police are seeing a surge in fraudulent online transactions as the return to Level 2 allows online trading of goods to resume.

In a statement, police said they were receiving multiple reports of buyers using false bank transfer statements and falsified digital documents to confirm payments have been made.

Police statistics were likely to tell only a part of the story as many people didn’t report the scamming out of embarrassment but police urged people to report any suspicious activity to give them the best chance of catching offenders.

Read the full article here.

The trial of two former Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority employees charged over an alleged fraud involving a government-funded waste-to-energy plant on the West Coast began today.

Gerard Anthony Gallagher, 62, and Simon Carl Nikoloff, 57, were both working for the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (Cera) in 2017 when they were the subject of an investigation by the State Services Commission (SSC) into alleged private property deals.

The SCC referred the pair to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) as a result and they were later charged.

Read more here.

A university student has lost $70,000 borrowed from friends and family to overseas scammers targeting Mandarin speakers.

Just a semester into a business degree at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT), Sally Lin’s world was “turned upside-down” after being scammed by a group pretending to be police and prosecutors in China, accusing her of involvement in a “high-profile” international money laundering case.

Read more here. 

While businesses' attitudes to cyber security are shifting, 3 in 5 small businesses believe they should be doing more to keep secure online, says CERT NZ.

According to research from the government cyber security agency CERT NZ, the majority of small businesses with an online presence understand the importance of protecting their website.

Over half (54%) of those surveyed said their organisation is concerned about cyber security, and 46% are trying to learn more about keeping their online business safe.

Despite this, some small businesses are not taking action to secure themselves.

Only 38% believe their business adequately invests in cyber security, and just 34% believe their business has put a lot of thought and planning into being cyber secure. Most concerning, under half (45%) have processes in place to prevent a cyber attack.

Read the full article here.