Serious Fraud Office

The SFO has finally announced that it will not be prosecuting anyone from Hanover over the collapse. After years of investigations they simply have not found anything to warrant a prosecution.

The Serious Fraud Office is not laying criminal charges against anyone associated with Hanover Finance following a 32-month investigation.

The office has spent longer mulling over whether to lay charges in the wake of the Hanover collapse than in the case of any other finance company it has probed.

The Hanover probe was ” by far the most extensive and challenging of the finance company investigations undertaken by SFO” said acting chief executive Simon McArley today.

“While many may view the conduct that occurred at Hanover Finance as egregious, that alone is not sufficient for me to commence a prosecution,” McArley said.  Read more »

The various teacher unions oppose Charter Schools for many reasons, one of them is that the government legislation as proposed doesn’t require Charter Schools to have mandatory teacher registration like every other school. The unions and the teachers’ Council say this puts kids at risk.

Of course since they started taking this tack in their opposition to Charter Schools I have been cataloguing plenty of teachers, all of them presumably registered as required by law, committing all sorts of crimes from dishonesty offences through to deviant sexual predatory attacks on children…all registered so the kids could be safe.

A foreign exchange trader is alleged to have stolen more than $837,000 from investors – including family and friends.

Rene Alan Chalmers, a 42-year-old teacher from Pukekohe, appeared at the Auckland District Court today to face 15 charges including theft by a person in a special relationship and making false statements to investors.

The charges relate to him trading in foreign money and allegedly misleading investors.  Read more »

Good to see bad bastards who do this sort of thing to defraud other business people get their beans. The pity is he only got home detention.

A fallen property hotshot wants to move on after escaping a prison sentence for faking documents to try to save his friend from bankruptcy.

Ralph Anthony Vuletic, 31, was sentenced to nine months’ home detention when he appeared in the High Court at Auckland yesterday.

He was facing Serious Fraud Office (SFO) charges after faking a debt to help friend and co-accused Marcus Friedlander avoid bankruptcy and dodge $10 million worth of bills from creditors nine years ago.

Vuletic had earlier pleaded guilty to using a document to defraud, attempting to pervert the course of justice and forging a document.

Friedlander is awaiting sentence after pleading guilty to counts of making forged documents, three of using a document for a pecuniary advantage and two of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

If you know of other people who have falsified sale and purchase agreements, debts, creditors statements and the like then please let me know on the tipline and I will investigate. There is a lot of dodgy activities out there perpetrated by people seeking to avoid bankruptcy or scrutiny of their nefarious and underhanded dealings. Often they work in conjunction with equally dodgy liquidators. They need the disinfectant of sunlight.

They should be outed, prosecuted and put in jail.

The Serious Fraud Office is looking into the affairs of the AUSA:

Three Auckland University students are urging the Serious Fraud Office to investigate their Students’ Association.

They’ve laid a complaint, claiming more than $600,000 of transactions made by AUSA was improperly accounted for, and wrongly authorised.

The students say it could bring the solvency of AUSA into question, and jeopardise its ability to provide services to students.

The Owl has also been looking into the affairs of the AUSA. His observations are below:

The Auckland University Student Association (AUSA) has been referred to the SFO for allegations of a $600,000.00 error. This was reported on the MSN news page on Wednesday.  Tania Lim the former Treasurer and 2 other Students laid the complaint. According to the newspaper report Ms Lim said “it had been going on for a while.”

Ms Lim said “it put the solvency of the Union at risk”

The 2006 Annual Reports names a number of associated businesses and Trusts namely: AUSA Media Trust, AUSA Services Trust, AUSA Property Trust and UBS Trust.

Whale Oil wrote in 30 July 2012 “The Hypocrisy of the AUSA” about the pending sale of an asset associated with the AUSA Property Trust No 2.

The OWL has no inside knowledge of the allegation but all executive members of the AUSA since 2006 should take note: – why?

OWL’s Observation

The Financial Accounts and annual reports since 2006 have not been filed with the Incorporated Society and Trust Office. This is a breach of duty and while it is fair to say the SFO will only look at the information presented to them – executive members have failed to follow correct filing procedures.

The AUSA 2006 accounts show a number of inter-related transactions and more importantly AUSA was technically insolvent by the tune of $658,866.00.

NOTE: The Owl draws no other conclusions and all information is available in the public domain.

ᔥ NZ Herald

The Bill Liu/Yong Ming affair is getting smellier and smellier. You rally have to wonder how much money this guy gave to Labour to get the sort of pretection he did:

Seven government agencies wanted to join a raid on Metropolis tower apartments owned by a wealthy Chinese businessman later granted citizenship in controversial circumstances.

A search warrant was executed on the apartments owned by Bill Liu – also known as Yang Liu, Yong Ming Yan and now William Yan – on the 35th floor of the tower in Auckland in June 2007.

Officers took more than an hour to search individual rooms, such were their size.

He was under investigation by the Department of Labour for immigration fraud at the time and documents released under the Official Information Act show that other law enforcement agencies wanted to be part of any raid at the property.

The police were going to execute the warrant with Immigration officers alone – until approached by the Ministry of Fisheries, the Department of Internal Affairs, Customs, the Serious Fraud Office and the Inland Revenue Department.

Eventually, the group decided that 13 investigators from the police, Immigration, Customs, IRD and Internal Affairs would search the Metropolis apartments and cars.

“The number of staff reflected the size of the residential area to be searched – five units in a hotel and three vehicles,” according to documents released by Immigration New Zealand.

However, “no documents were seized and/or evidence retained as a result of the search warrant.”

Mr Yan later complained, through his lawyer, that customs officials stepped outside the authority of the warrant by taking photographs inside the apartment.

The raid happened at the same time as Labour MP David Cunliffe, the Immigration Minister at the time, was considering an application from officials to have Mr Yan’s residency revoked.

The grounds for revocation were that he had failed to disclose the Yong Min Yang identity, the fact that he was married in Australia and was wanted by the Chinese authorities on an alleged fraud.

Mr Cunliffe declined to revoke his residency and asked officials to continue investigating the potential immigration fraud.

The following year, Mr Yan was granted New Zealand citizenship by Labour Party minister Shane Jones against the advice of officials that he did not meet the good character test, because he had two passports with two names and two birthdates, and was wanted in China for an alleged large-scale fraud.

ᔥ 3News

Patrick Gower (still not calling him Pedro) has been like a dog with a bone chasing the Bill Liu story. It is now starting to get very smelly:

But Mr Jones had a different view. He granted Mr Yan citizenship on humanitarian grounds, believing he would be executed if returned to China.

The documents also detail a raid on Mr Yan’s apartment in the Metropolis tower. They show there was plenty of interest in taking part – not just from immigration – but also the Police’s Asian Crime Squad, Internal Affairs, Customs, the Serious Fraud Office, Inland Revenue and the Ministry of Fisheries.

Authorities were also informed by Internal Affairs that Mr Yan “is spending literally millions of dollars at the casino and associating with known criminals.”

So officials here and in China were working on having Mr Yan extradited. Then, at complete cross-purposes, Mr Jones’ decision meant Mr Yan got citizenship here in a special ceremony at Parliament. That decision is now under investigation by the Auditor-General – and Mr Jones declined to comment today.

ᔥ NBR

Another of the tight six has been convicted. I reported details of this complex corruption and fraud issue at ACC.

A second player in an ACC property fraud has pleaded guilty.

Gregory Alexander Hutt (54) today admitted in the Wellington High Court to a Crimes Act bribery charge brought by the Serious Fraud Office.

He was a co-offender with Malcolm David Mason (51), who was sentenced last year to 11 months’ home detention and ordered to pay the courts $160,000 he had corruptly received.

Mason’s role was to procure premises for ACC, tendering for their development and negotiating lease terms.

Hutt was involved in property development.

When the story broke in 2010, the blog site, Whale Oil, made allegations naming a well-known, close-knit group of property players in Wellington.

The charges arose after ACC reviewed the lease of 47 Collingwood St, Nelson, for $346,320 per annum.

This review culminated in the dismissal of Mason after the deal prompted complaints to ACC minister Nick Smith about rentals other tenants felt were too high for the area.

As regular readers will know I have been focusing on dodgy unions and their lackadaisical financial records.

One union which I highlighted was the Meatworkers and Related Trades Union in which I found over $4 million of members funds missing.

As a result of my investigations one of the meat companies laid a complaint with the Serious Fraud Office who declined to investigate. Perhaps they should have not been so hasty in dismissing the complaint. Perhaps Helen Kelly might like to apologise to AFFCO after labeling their complaint as “hatred”.

I have learned yesterday that the Meatworkers and Related Trades Union has been ordered by The Registrar of Incorporated Societies to comply with the law and has required the Union to re-do their latest financial statement to include the figures for the unincorporated branches.

This means that the union claims that it was all above board for them to not issue consolidated accounts and essentially hide members monies in subsidiaries was based on poor advice and they are now being required to properly file audited accounts.

This also means that the unincorporated societies are essentially breaking the Employment Relations Act and operating as illegal unions.

Perhaps Helen Kelly might like to apologise to AFFCO after labeling their complaint as “hatred”. It turns out that their complaint certainly looks like it had a great deal of merit but for the lack of focus of the regulator, more intent on looking for corporate fraud rather than fraud against working people. All AFFCO wanted was for members money to be properly accounted for, something you would have thought Helen Kelly and the CTU would have wanted for workers.

Perhaps too the Accountants Society should re-think their ignoring of wilful disobedience of legal requirement for unions to file full and proper accounts.

I await the new accounts that properly record the financial activities of the Meatworkers and Related Trades Union. Once they are filed we can then get a better picture on the true state of the union finances rather than the dodgy accounts filed thus far.

I believe it would be reasonable for the past few years to be likewise corrected so that a proper trace on funds can be completed.

Other unions are in a similar position, either with incomplete financial records as required by law, or with improper consolidation. They would do well to comply with the law.

With the SFO becoming involved the Meatworkers Union and their useful helpers such as Helen Kelly have been quick to start explaining…and we all know what that means.

NZ Meat Workers Union general secretary Dave Eastlake is “positive” the Serious Fraud Office will reject AFFCO’s calls for an investigation.

He told NBR Online the meat processor’s claims are mischievous and “a load of rubbish”.

Mr Eastlake says union members pay their fees to the branches – which have their own set of audited accounts – and the branch offices pay the national office a capitation fee based on their annual membership.

Now that is interesting because the CEO Hamish Simson talked to Larry Williams on NewstalkZB about the issue and stated that they pay all the union dues for union members to a single bank account and that account is in the name of the NZ Meatworkers Union and AFFCO is 10% of the union’s membership. There is no separation into branches by AFFCO.

So the Union seems to be telling porkies…they are at least being very economical with the truth by saying that the payments go through the branches. But those branches are unincorporated…which is illegal for a union. All unions must be by law Incorporated Societies. So taking funds through the branches would be illegal.

Where have the millions gone?

Once again though it focusses on the fact that unions have the employers deduct union dues for them. It is my view that such payroll protection for union dues should be removed. If unions want people to join and pay dues they should do what almost every other society does and go and get automatic payment forms filled out by their members. It shouldn;t be the job of the employer to collect the union dues on behalf of the union.

ᔥ Waikato Times

Helen Kelly certainly isn’t listening to the Talleys after they wrote a letter telling her that her special kind of meddling wasn’t wanted in their company. Now she is outraged by AFFCO writing a letter of complaint to the Serious Fraud Office about the dodgy account practices of the Meatworkers Union. She just couldn’t help herself and had to mouth off:

The Talleys company’s “hatred” of unions is behind a request by the Affco meat company to the Serious Fraud Office to investigate the financial accounts of the NZ Meat Workers Union, says CTU president Helen Kelly.

Affco, owned by the South Island’s Talley family, has laid a complaint with the SFO, alleging the union is not complying with its statutory reporting requirements and that there appears to be irregularities in the union’s financial accounts.

The Talley’s should just take the advice of Cactus Kate and say “So Bloody What” to any enquiries about their so-called “hatred” of unions.

And then they should up the stakes on Helen Kelly and the Meatworkers Union and hire Rob Campbell for their board. He quit the  Ports of Auckland because they were being big girls blouses in their dealings with the Martime Union. If they got Rob Campbell on board then that would be a great big FU and SBW to Helen Kelly and the Meatworkers Union.

Helen Kelly should mind her p’s and q’s though because the CTU accounts need looking into as well.