Rendez-vous sur notre butik en ligne menuangkan vous procurer nos dernires sorties NOUVELLE SORTIE CDDVD LUX Live - 2016 Retrouvez ds prsent en VPC et magasin LUX Live en version Standar vinyle ganda standar (transparan) avec le DVD, en CDDVD Digipack ainsi qu039en dition Longbox CDBlu-Ray ou CDDVD accompagn d039un livret foto de la tourne LUX entre 2014 et 2016. Rendez-vous ds mercredi 22 fvrier pour en profiter Adaptation du mapping Evolusi sur l039glise Saint-James de Montreal (Fvrier 2017) Programme vido. Yann Nguema Musique. Desain EZ3kiel Lumire. Arnaud Doucet amp Sistem RED La Maison Production EVOLUTIONSMONTREAL EVOLUTIONSMONTREAL Blade Runner Les Androdes rides-ils de moutons lectriques Rendez-vous ce soir, vendredi 20 janvier, dans le cadre du festival Le Got Des Autres 2017 au Havre, tuangkan un concert littraire en compagnie de Pascal Greggory. Nous y joueront une adaptasi du roman de Philip K. Dick mengutip Androdes rides-ils de moutons lectriques quot (Blade Runner). Voici quelques gambar des dernires rptitions. RADIO NOVA - Blade Runner, radio-remake Relu et mengatur par EZ3kiel et Pascal Greggory, secara langsung. RADIO NOVA - Blade Runner, radio-remake Nous prsenterons quelques menyamakan notre concert litteraire autour de quotBlade Runnerquot (de Philip K. Dick) avec Pascal Greggory ce jeudi 12 janvier en direct sur Radio Nova, partir de 22h. Cette cration se jouera dans le cadre du Festival quotle Gout des Autresquot (festival littraire porte par la Ville du Havre), qui a souhait nous runir pour crire la troisime partition de cette sains fiksi pessimiste aux allures cyberpunk. Plus d039infos ici. Lehavre. frevenements31957agenda44162 Relu et mengatur par EZ3kiel et Pascal Greggory, secara langsung. Impressive Mapping Evolutions on Cathedral (oleh EZ3kiel) Lebih Infos. Bit. ly2idiXOp Berita Lainnya Seperti Fubiz di Facebook EZ3KIEL - DVD VERSUS TOUR LIVE 2004 (FULL) VERSUS TOUR LIVE 2004 Le live complet de notre quotVersus Tourquot enregistr en 2004 est dsormais disponible en streaming sur notre chaine Youtube. Le CDDVD est toujours disponible sur notre butik en ligne. Butik-ez3kielfrcat482195-479705-CD-DVD-EZ3kiel - Versus-Tour-.html Et en tlchargement sur iTunes. Itunes. applefralbumversus-tur-live-2004id491019524 Bonnes ftes de fin d039anne. EZ3kiel quot48 proyektor. Crachent des flashs blouissants puis s039agitent pour crer des visions rappelant Rencontres du troisime type. quot TELERAMA LUX LIVE est maintenant disponible en CDDVD Digipack, Double vinyle standard ou limits (transparents) avec le DVD, en dition collector Longbox CDBlu-Ray ou CDDVD, le Tout, accompagn d039un livret foto de la tourne LUX entre 2014 et 2016. Egalement disponible en tlchargement et sur les plateformes de streaming. Gt VPC Icidailleursindex. phprouteproductcategoryamppath116 gt Itunes. Itunes. applefralbumlux-liveid1161503399 Nous avons le plaisir de vous annoncer que notre CDDVD LUX Live sortira le 11 novembre prochain Tanggal cette, vous aurez la possibilit de vous procurer en ligne et chez tous les bons disquaires la versi ganda Digipack et la versi Digitale. Un livret halaman 24 comprenant des photos de la tourne LUX agrmentera le douze Digipack, le tout avec konsepsi graphique spcialement ralise par Yann pour l039occasion. Pour les amateurs de vinyles et dditions limites, il faudra sarmer de patience jusqu039au 9 dcembre pour dcouvrir des ditions limusin Longbox et ddicaces en versions CDDVD et CDBlu-Ray, ainsi que des double vinyles standards ou limits (vinyles transparents et ddicacs) accompagns du DVD Et dun code pour tlcharger lalbum en ligne. Vous pouvez dores et dj pr komandan lobjet de votre choix ici. Icidailleursindex. phprouteproductcategoryamppath116 Versi prcommande Digitale sur iTunes: itunes. applefralbumlux-liveid1161503399 Nhsitez pas partager linfo Sebuah trs bientt. EZ3kiel LUX Live CD DVD Dengan bangga kami umumkan bahwa CD CD Live Live Quot kami akan dirilis pada tanggal 11 November mendatang. Mulai tanggal tersebut, dapatkan dan nikmatilah versi Digipack kami yang ganda dan atau versi Digital yang telah kami buat, bersama dengan halaman 24 Booklet termasuk gambar dari LUX Tour, yang disempurnakan secara grafis dengan tangan Yann039 yang unik untuk acara ini. Sedangkan untuk pecinta vinyl dan limited edition, keringat sampai 9 Desember dan temukan edisi Longbox terbatas yang ditandatangani di CD DVD dan CD Blu-Ray, serta vinil ganda standar atau terbatas (transparan dan ditandatangani, bersamaan dengan DVD dan kode Untuk mendownload album secara online Pre-order CD DVD Blu-Ray di sini: icidailleursindex. phprouteproductcategoryamppath116 Preorder Versi digital di Itunes: itunes. applefralbumlux-liveid1161503399 Jangan ragu untuk berbagi melihat Anda Ez3kiel Foto dari posting EZ3kiel0 Nous travaillons actuellement sur un concert litteraire autour de L039oeuvre de Philip K. Dick quotBLADE RUNNERquot (Les androdes rvent-ils de moutons lectriques) en collaboration avec l039excellent comdien Pascal Greggory. Cette cration se jouera dans le cadre du Festival quotle Gout des Autresquot (festival littrade porte par la Ville du Havre), Qui - pour sa 6me dition consacre aux littratures des nouveaux mondes - souhait nous runir pour crire la troisime partition d E cette science-fiksi pesimis aura allures cyberpunk. Gt Vendredi 20 janvier 2017 - 21h Magic Mirror - Quai des Antilles, Le Havre Gratuit (dans la limite des places disponibles) Ditambah d039infos ici. Lehavre. frevenements31957agenda44162 Program Pemetaan Evolusi - vido. Yann Nguema Musique. Desain EZ3kiel Lumire. Sistem Operasi Arnaud Doucet amp RED. Produksi Sistem Merah. La Maison Production Infos lainnya: behancegallery44638063Mapping-Evolutions Evolution Soundtrack Soundtrack dari pemetaan quotEvolutionsquot EZ3kiel039s. Behancegallery44638063Mapping-Evolutions Retrouvez ds prsent en VPC et magasin LUX Versi live en version Standar vinyle standar ou (transparan) avec le DVD ainsi qu039en dition Longbox CDBlu-Ray ou CDDVD accompagn d039un livret photo de la tourne LUX entre 2014 et 2016. L039album est toujours Disponible en format CDDVD Digipack, en tlchargement et sur les plateformes de streaming. Gt VPC Icidailleursindex. phprouteproductcategoryamppath116 gt Itunes. Itunes. applefralbumlux-liveid1161503399 H-1 avant l039ouverture de La Fte des Lumires de Lyon. Venez dcouvrir notre pemetaan quotE V O L U T I O N Squot sur la Cathdrale Saint-Jean (Lyon 5me). Vous avez la possibilit de voter, ds aujourd039hui et demain, tuangkan dsigner le gagnant du Trophe France 3 des Lumires l039adresse ci-dessous. Leclub. francetv. frjeu-france3le-trophee-des-lumieres-france-3 EvolutionsFDLSTJean Vous aurez la possibilit de voter les 8 et 9 dcembre pour dsigner le gagnant du Trophe France 3 des Lumires l039adresse ci-dessous. Leclub. francetv. frjeu-france3le-trophee-des-lumieres-france-3 Foto Timeline Les ditions vinyles et Blu-ray de quotLUX Livequot seront disponible partir du 9 dcembre prochain en version Longbox CDDVD ou CDBlu-Ray, ainsi qu039en doubly vinyles standard Ou batas (transparansi) avec le DVD et un code pour tlcharger lalbum Vous pouvez dors et dj le komandan directement ici: icidailleursindex. phprouteproductcategoryamppath116 Foto Timeline Vous aurez la possibilit de voter les 8 et 9 dcembre pour dsigner le gagnant du Trophe France 3 des Lumires Aku sangat takut. Leclub. francetv. frjeu-france3le-trophee-des-lumieres-france-3 EZ3kiel-Pemetaan-SCULPT Plus d039infos. Behancegallery45400305SCULPT-Mapping S. C.U. L.P. T Instalasi interaktif Collgiale Saint Martin - Angers - Prancis Du 1 Octobre 2015 au 31 Janvier 2016 Ralis par Yann Nguema Musique. EZ3kiel. QuotLUX Livequot en coute sur Deezer Timeline Foto Retrouvez ds prsent en magasin LUX Live en CDDVD Digipack ainsi que sur le web en tlchargement et sur les plateformes de streaming Les ditions vinyles et Blu-ray seront disponible qu partir du 9 dcembre prochain en version Longbox CDDVD Ou CDBlu-Ray, ainsi qu039en ganda vinyles standar ou limits (transparansi) avec le DVD et un code pour tlcharger lalbum. Gt Double vinylesDVD, et Longbox DVD ou Blu-ray dition limite toujours en prcommande ici: icidailleursindex. phprouteproductcategoryamppath116 Pemetaan - Evolusi - Temper 2016 Aprs une anne d039attente, nous sommes trs heureux de vous confirmer nouveau notre participation La Fte des Lumires de Lyon du 8 Au 10 dcembre 2016 sur la Cathdrale Saint Jean, pemetaan avec notre quotEvolutionsquot. Pemetaan penggoda quotEvolutionsquot ralis par Yann Nguema sur la cathdrale Saint Jean tuangkan la Fte des Lumires 2015 (reporte en 2016). Musique par EZ3kiel. LUX DVD Live quotReflectionsquot Resmi Live gt Prcommande CDDVD Digipack (sortie le 1111), et double vinylesDVD, DVD Longbox DVD ou Blu-ray dition limite (sortie le 0912): icidailleursindex. phprouteproductcategoryamppath116 gt Versi prcommande Digital sur iTunes: itunes. applefralbumlux-liveid1161503399 EZ3kiel QuotLUX Tourquot 20142016 Difilmkan di Festival Vieilles Charrues et Paleo pada tahun 2015 Sombrero amp co KIKA - Ralisation Samuel Petit EZ3kiel quotLUX Livequot - CDD. Princess Cruises On Princess Cruises, petualangan memenuhi keanggunan, kelas dan gaya. Dengan fasilitas onboard yang mewah dan berbagai tujuan yang eksotis dan menarik, pelayaran Putri sangat bagus untuk liburan bersama teman, pelayaran keluarga atau retret romantis. Princess Cruises berjanji untuk memastikan Anda memiliki retret santai dan merevitalisasi di laut. Mereka dapat menikmati anggur oleh kaca dan hiburan live di Piazza, dan atrium yang terinspirasi Italia, atau bersantai di Sanctuary khusus orang dewasa, di mana Anda dimanjakan dengan pijat, musik yang menenangkan dan minuman penyegar spa. Anda bisa menonton film di dek dengan film Princess Cruises Signature Under the Stars, atau memesan layanan kamar dan menyaksikan matahari terbenam dari balkon pribadi mereka. Untuk dekat dengan kapal pesiar rumah. Ada lebih dari 45 pilihan yang berbeda untuk Princess Cruises melalui Australia dan Selandia Baru, dengan sorotan termasuk Taman Nasional Fjordland dan Great Barrier Reef. Princess Cruises juga melakukan perjalanan melalui Eropa dengan beberapa perjalanan besar untuk memenuhi semua selera, mulai dari Kepulauan Mediterania dan Yunani hingga perjalanan melalui Tanah Suci, Skandinavia, Rusia atau Kepulauan Inggris. Anda juga bisa berlayar melalui Alaskas Glacier Bay, atau melihat Tembok Besar Chinas dalam perjalanan melalui Afrika, India dan Asia, atau Anda bisa berlayar ke Meksiko, Terusan Panama atau Amerika Selatan. Princess Cruises membanggakan diri sebagai Ahli Tujuan, dan dengan begitu banyak pilihan yang tersedia, Anda dapat melihat mengapa. Kapal Pesiar Putri Cruises melayani anak-anak berusia tiga sampai 17 tahun, dengan banyak kegiatan onboard yang menarik. Pusat Remaja onboard dan Lounge Remaja dikelola oleh konselor berpengalaman, yang bertujuan untuk menjaga kapal pesiar muda tetap bahagia sepanjang hari. Anak-anak dapat menikmati proyek seni, rilis film terbaru, pesta pizza, pertunjukan bakat, acara makan malam khusus anak-anak, turnamen olahraga dan banyak lagi. Pelikan Putri dan Shockwaves adalah pusat yang melayani anak-anak berusia tiga sampai tujuh tahun, dan delapan sampai 12 orang. Remaja berusia 13 17 dapat melarikan diri dari orang tua mereka di lounge eksklusif Teens. Ragamnya adalah bumbu kehidupan, dan pada pelayaran Putri ada banyak rempah untuk meningkatkan pengalaman bersantap Anda. Di ruang makan utama, pilihlah antara Traditional Dining (dengan waktu tetap dan tempat duduk), atau Anytime Dining (makan kapan dan dengan siapa Anda inginkan). Ada juga beberapa restoran khusus di setiap kapal, seperti masakan Italia Sabatinis, atau The Crown Grill yang menyajikan daging sapi premium. Untuk sesuatu yang sedikit lebih santai, kunjungi Kafe Internasional, untuk kue kering dan gelato segar. Dan, untuk sesuatu yang istimewa, mintalah makan malam multi-kursus yang disajikan kepada Anda di balkon Anda dengan pilihan Ultimate Balcony Dining. Cruise Cruise Princess Deals Di ambang abad kedua puluh kita memasuki periode perubahan sejauh mencapai apapun yang telah kita lihat. Sejak revolusi industri orang harus menemukan diri mereka di pusat-pusat besar di mana mereka bisa bekerja dengan orang lain, namun sekarang teknologi baru membuat jarak tidak penting. Keterampilan yang dibutuhkan dalam masyarakat masa depan adalah hubungan yang terkait dengan informasi dan pengetahuan daripada keterampilan industri pada abad kesembilanbelas dan kedua puluh. Mengubah teknologi akan mempengaruhi hampir semua aspek kehidupan kita: bagaimana kita melakukan pekerjaan kita bagaimana kita mendidik anak-anak kita bagaimana kita berkomunikasi satu sama lain dan bagaimana kita dihibur, Maurice Williamson, Menteri Teknologi Informasi, 1 Maret 1996 di pengantarnya kepada ImpacT 2001 . Bagaimana Teknologi Informasi Akan Merubah Selandia Baru. 1840: S. E Grimshaw menjadi Postmaster pertama di Selandia Baru. Pembayarannya untuk layanan adalah 20 persen dari penerimaan pos. 1858. Undang-Undang Pos Lokal membuka jalan untuk pengangkatan seorang Kepala Postmaster dan Dewan Provinsi yang berwenang untuk mendirikan kantor pos yang dikoordinasi secara nasional. Akhirnya Kantor Pos Selandia Baru akan mengendalikan perbankan melalui Bank Tabungan Pos bersama dengan layanan telegraf dan teleks, jaringan telepon untuk layanan panggilan dan radio nasional dan internasional termasuk kontak dengan kapal 1862: Jalur telegraf listrik pertama yang menghubungkan Christchurch dan Lyttleton adalah Katalisator untuk serangkaian konstruksi yang melibatkan jalur telegraf pribadi dan militer antara Auckland, Christchurch dan Dunedin. Kiwi sekarang bisa tetap berhubungan dengan kode Morse. Salah satu pesan pertama yang dikirim adalah kepada Pak Oakes di Christchurch dan baca: quotMr Oakes yang akan datang di sekunar Colleen Baun dengan barang-barang. Anjing Pedro keracunan dan sudah mati. Jaringan kedua dibangun dengan cepat di antara Port Chalmers dan Dunedin. 1863. Postmaster-General mencurahkan satu halaman laporan tahunannya ke telegram tersebut dengan mengatakan bahwa dia ingin melihat jaringan telegraf luas koloni termasuk kabel Selat Cook. Ada sembilan jaringan telegraf independen yang mencakup sebagian besar Pulau Selatan. Pemerintah mendirikan Departemen Telegraf Listrik, segera menempatkan semakin banyak jaringan telegraf independen di bawah kendali terpusat. 1865. Usaha kedua untuk memasang kabel melintasi dasar laut Selat yang kasar pada bulan Agustus terbukti berhasil, dan komunikasi antar Kepulauan dimungkinkan dari tanggal 26 bulan itu. Sebuah kantor telegraf didirikan di Picton pada tahun berikutnya yang diikuti oleh Blenheim dan Nelson. 1872: Garis Wellington-Auckland selesai, sekitar 400.000 pesan setiap tahun dibawa melalui jaringan yang masih muda 1876: Kabel bawah laut pertama dari Botany Bay di Sydney, ke Cable Bay dekat Nelson tiba di darat pada bulan Februari 1876. Setelah terhubung ke terminal Rumah di Nelson pada tanggal 21 Februari, komunikasi langsung dengan Australia dimungkinkan dan berlanjut ke Asia, Eropa dan Inggris. Departemen Telegraf Selandia Baru mempekerjakan dan melatih operator telekomunikasi pertama yang menggunakan tombol Morse untuk mengirim dan memecahkan kode pesan. 1877-1880: Pada tahun 1877 seorang teknisi listrik Dunedin Charles A. Henry mengorganisir sidang telegraf yang pertama berbicara berdasarkan pemasangan receiver telepon dan pemancar berdasarkan apa yang telah dia baca di majalah. Menurut Otago Daily Times sebuah alat telepon dan kawat dilekatkan pada kawat telegraf yang ada di kantor Dunedin Telegraph dan satu lagi di kantor Milton - berjarak 57km. Surat kabar tersebut menggambarkannya sebagai hal yang luar biasa. Ini menulis Sejumlah besar pertanyaan diajukan dan masing-masing langsung dijawab oleh orang di Milton. Tidak hanya kata-kata yang bisa diucapkan di kedua ujungnya terdengar jelas, namun perbedaan nada suara dapat dengan mudah dibedakan. Kantor telepon pertama dibuka di Port Chalmers pada tahun 1879 dengan hubungan pertama antara Port Chalmers dan Portobello sehingga informasi pengiriman dapat disampaikan ke Dunedin lebih cepat. Nyonya Sheehy, yang menerima telepon dari peternakan Roxburgh pada tahun 1877, adalah orang pertama di Selandia Baru untuk mengadakan percakapan dengan orang lain. Telepon mulai digunakan untuk melengkapi telegraf di kota-kota kecil yang kekurangan keuangan untuk mempekerjakan operator Morse. 1879: Hanya 19 dari 214 stasiun telegraf yang masih beroperasi secara independen, karena Kantor Pos semakin mengambil alih berbagai jaringan telegraf dari Departemen Telegraf Listrik. 1881: Departemen Pos dan Telegraf Selandia Baru menggantikan Departemen Telegraf dan dengan cepat menjadi monopoli negara bagian, atas saran dari pejabat pemerintah, untuk mencegah Perusahaan Telegraf Listrik Chicago, yang merupakan anteseden langsung Ameritech dan Bell Atlantic, membuka sebuah Bertukar di sini Ini akan bertanggung jawab penuh atas perangkat telepon baru yang aneh ini, melatih operator dan mengembangkan jaringan telepon di seluruh negeri. Pertukaran manual pertama dengan pemancar yang dioperasikan dengan baterai dibuka di Christchurch sehingga memungkinkan 30 pelanggan berbicara kepada operator dan satu sama lain. Dalam 10 hari Auckland membuka bursa dengan 26 pelanggan. Banyak kota besar lainnya mengikutinya. Kabel overhead mulai muncul di seluruh negara yang menghubungkan bisnis dan komunitas. Tiang-tiang ini dengan kabel yang menggantung dari mereka sering disebut pohon limau setelah direktur telegraf Dr Lemon. 1892: Operator pertukaran wanita dipekerjakan untuk duduk dalam barisan yang menghubungkan panggilan dengan memasukkan steker ke dalam soket yang terkait dengan nomor yang dipanggil. 1894: Setahun sebelum transmisi nirkabel pertama buatan Marconis di Eropa, Ernest Rutherford lulusan fisika di Canterbury University College, mengirimkan sinyal 18 meter melintasi departemen fisika melalui beberapa dinding menggunakan gelombang Hertzian. Awal 1900-an: Kemajuan teknologi dengan cepat seperti halnya jaringan dengan telekomunikasi menjadi bagian penting dari struktur sosial dan salah satu bentuk pekerjaan komersial pertama. Telepon menghubungkan komunitas lokal dengan keluarga dan layanan penting dan mulai menyentuh kehidupan semua orang Selandia Baru. Hal berubah seiring dengan datangnya pertukaran otomatis dan kapasitas yang meningkat mampu menangani 500 baris sekaligus. 1902: J. L. Passmore, seorang remaja Dunedin, membuat telegraf nirkabel dari petunjuk di majalah. Pada 1903, pemain berusia 18 tahun itu bisa mengirim sinyal hingga 10km, dan pada saat itu eksperimen lebih lanjut mungkin telah menimbulkan kemarahan pemerintah yang sekarang memiliki kendali penuh atas perkembangan apapun yang mungkin disebut telepon nirkabel 1903: Selandia Baru Pembuat undang-undang mengenali potensi pengiriman pesan nirkabel melalui radio dengan Undang-Undang Telegraf Nirkabel yang disahkan pada tanggal 26 September 1903 di dunia pertama, dan satu tahun menjelang undang-undang setara di Inggris dan dua tahun di depan Australia dan Kanada. Undang-undang tersebut melindungi investasi pemerintah di jaringan telepon kabel dan telegraf baru dan membiarkannya mengelola spektrum radio untuk mencegah gangguan. 1906: Transmisi radio domestik pertama dibuat oleh Marconi Company di Pameran Internasional Christchurch 1906 dan transmisi trans-Tasman pertama dilakukan dari HMS Pioneer di pelabuhan Wellington melalui HMS Powerful di Laut Tasman sampai HMS Psyche di Sydney Harbour pada tanggal 3 Februari. 1908. 1910: Selandia Baru sekarang memiliki telepon kabel pertama mereka yang dioperasikan. 1912: Pemerintah Selandia Baru mengeluarkan Undang-undang Telekomunikasi Negara yang baru. Yang memungkinkan orang-orang di daerah pedesaan membangun jaringan telepon mereka sendiri dan terhubung ke jaringan publik. Peralatan pertukaran otomatis pertama mulai beroperasi di Auckland dan Wellington tahun itu, sebagai pelengkap pertukaran manual di setiap pusat. Kota pertama yang memiliki sistem telepon otomatis adalah Masterton pada tahun 1919 1915: Telepon pertama dipasang di dinding pada tahun 1915, telepon candlestick diperkenalkan. 1921. Konser siaran baru Zealane yang pertama ditransmisikan dari laboratorium fisika Otago University pada 17 November 1921 oleh Profesor Robert Jack. Dia mengirimkan seri pertama dari serangkaian konser yang mencakup rekaman musik live dan gramofon. Transmisinya terdengar jauh dari Auckland. 1923: Peraturan pertama yang mengatur penyiaran diberlakukan. Siapa pun yang berencana menjadi penyiar harus memiliki karakter yang baik, termasuk materi religius setidaknya tiga jam pada hari Minggu dan membatasi konten dengan karakter edukatif atau hiburan seperti berita, ceramah, informasi bermanfaat, layanan keagamaan, hiburan musikal atau elokusi dan item dari Kepentingan umum yang bisa disetujui oleh Menteri dari waktu ke waktu. Periklanan tidak terpikirkan dan kontroversi dilarang. 1925: Bursa cabang otomatis swasta pertama (PABX) muncul. Siaran radio pertama dibuat dari Auckland (cek). 1926: Meskipun telah ada yang relatif, Kabel Selat Cook pertama yang didedikasikan untuk telepon diletakkan dengan mengganti kabel telegraf yang tidak dapat diandalkan yang menghubungkan Kepulauan Utara dan Selatan yang telah dibangun pada tahun 1864. 1927. Layanan telepon transatlantik beroperasi 1929: Sistem carrier diperkenalkan untuk mengirimkan sejumlah suara melalui satu pasang kabel telepon dengan menggunakan frekuensi yang berbeda (multiplexing divisi frekuensi). 1930: Semua pusat utama sekarang menjadi bagian dari jaringan telepon nasional melalui jaringan cabang otomatis swasta, dan penelepon dapat membayar biaya panggilan untuk terhubung antar kota dan kota. Kantor Pos Selandia Baru (NZPO) memiliki sekitar 125.000 pelanggan. Bakelite hitam persegi tetap menjadi ponsel standar. Tahun 1930an: Panggilan di luar negeri dimungkinkan dari tahun 1930an. Panggilan internasional pertama dibuat dari Kirkcaldies and Stains di Wellington pada tanggal 25 November 1930 dan mendapat telepon dari Menteri Urusan Pribumi Sir Apirana Ngata dan Perdana Menteri Penjaga Australia Fenton. Ngata membuka dengan sapaan Maori. Tak lama setelah dua panggilan bisnis dikirim ke Sydney dan enam orang dari Australia membunyikan teman di Selandia Baru. Tuduhan untuk telepon adalah satu pon per menit. 1931: Layanan toll internasional diperpanjang ke Inggris dengan biaya telepon enam kilogram dan 15 shilling. Pada tahun pertama ada 312 panggilan ke dan dari Selandia Baru. 1939: Selandia Baru memiliki lebih banyak telepon per kepala penduduk daripada negara manapun kecuali Amerika Serikat. Tarif tol internasional menjadi lebih terjangkau dan 3457 panggilan ke dan dari Selandia Baru dicatat. 1945: Pada Konferensi Telekomunikasi Persemakmuran yang diadakan di London, Pemerintah Selandia Baru menandatangani sebuah kesepakatan untuk mengambil alih tanggung jawab atas komunikasi eksternal. Aset Cable and Wireless dibeli dan Kantor Pos Selandia Baru bertanggung jawab atas layanan telekomunikasi eksternal maupun internal. 1950: Ada 348.539 pelanggan layanan telepon. 1953: Panggilan tol pelanggan pertama (STD) diperkenalkan yang memungkinkan orang melakukan panggilan tol langsung. 1959. Sebuah jalan tol telekomunikasi didirikan oleh Kantor Pos untuk panggilan jarak jauh, yang pada awalnya hanya membawa 600 sirkuit antara Wellington dan Auckland. Ini membentuk basis jaringan modern. 1960: Pukul 7.30 malam pada hari Rabu tanggal 1 Juni 1960, sebuah saklar dilemparkan ke sebuah bangunan di Shortland Street di pusat kota Auckland dan transmisi televisi resmi Zealane yang pertama dimulai. Selandia Baru adalah seorang yang terlambat memasuki usia televisi. Inggris telah memimpin jalan ketika BBC memulai layanan publik pertama di dunia pada tahun 1936 tiga tahun kemudian NBC mulai melakukan siaran di Amerika Serikat dan Australia memiliki stasiun pertamanya yang beroperasi pada tahun 1956. Sebuah komite Pemerintah telah mempelajari media baru ini sejak tahun 1949, dan eksperimental Siaran telah diizinkan dari tahun 1951 (asalkan tidak memasukkan apa pun yang bisa digolongkan sebagai hiburan). Lampu hijau untuk televisi akhirnya diberikan pada bulan November 1959 dengan sebuah pengumuman dari Perdana Menteri Selandia Baru saat itu, Sir Walter Nash. Pada tahun 1960 Selandia Baru memiliki 686.021 telepon dan model yang lebih berbentuk estetis mulai menggantikan model bakelite hitam yang keras. Pada bulan November, Departemen Keuangan menyewa mainframe IBM 650, komputer pertama New Zealands. Dalam setahun, Canterbury University dan pabrik biskuit Griffins juga memiliki komputer. Pada tahun 1962, Treasury menganggap IBM 650 ketinggalan zaman. 1962: Pemerintah yang dimiliki oleh New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation (NZBC) mendirikan layanan radio nasional, Radio Selandia Baru. 1963: Telegram Morse terakhir ditulis oleh Gubernur Jenderal Bernard Fergusson ke walikota Eastborne pada bulan Januari 1963, pada bulan Oktober sirkuit Morse domestik terakhir ditutup. 1965: Selandia Baru sekarang berada di urutan ketiga di dunia dengan kepadatan telepon dengan 35 persen populasi berlangganan. Sekitar 77 persen dari semua telepon ada di bursa otomatis. 1969: Buletin Berita Jaringan Pertama dibaca oleh Dougal Stevenson dan diterima bersamaan di seluruh negeri. Interdependensi elektronik baru ini menciptakan kembali citra dunia dalam sebuah desa global, Marshall McLuhan, Galaksi Gutenberg. 1962 Tahun 1970an: Selandia Baru dengan cepat berkembang dari pedesaan ke industri dan komersial dan jaringan telepon berada di bawah tekanan untuk mengimbanginya. Negara bergerak melampaui satu saluran TV, universitas mulai jaringan komputer dan jaringan komunikasi mereka pergi internasional. Jaringan broadband yang disebut sekarang membawa ribuan sirkuit dan STD (telepon pelanggan atau panggilan tol) tersedia di sebagian besar pusat pada tahun 1976. Pelanggan internasional yang menelepon, tanpa harus melalui operator, juga diperkenalkan seperti tombol push and speaker. Telepon. 1970. Kantor Pos Selandia Baru mulai menawarkan layanan Datel (datatelephony) untuk mengirim data komputer dan teleks melalui jalur khusus pada 2400 bits per detik. 1971: Stasiun satelit pertama dibuka di Warkworth. Sekarang ada lebih dari satu juta pelanggan telepon. Tautan on-line pertama di luar negeri dibuat oleh American Express untuk terhubung ke jaringan pemesanan hotelnya. Pemerintah, melalui Komite Hibah Wakil Kanselir membuat kesepakatan untuk membeli lima merek main anyaman Burroughs 6700 (kemudian Unisys) baru-baru ini untuk universitas negeri dengan maksud agar mereka berjejaring. 1972: Ada 200 komputer bisnis di negara ini, terutama mainframe berat yang membutuhkan kamar ber-AC yang besar untuk beroperasi. Mereka diberi kartu punch dan meludahkan data mereka tentang printer rencana besar dengan karakter tipe asci biasa. 1973: Rencana pertama kali dibahas untuk menghubungkan mainframe Burroughs B6700 di Universitas Victoria ke Universitas Aloha di Hawaii dengan menggunakan jaringan paket Kantor Pos X.25. Administrator universitas tidak percaya proyek penelitian itu bermanfaat sehingga bisa lolos. 1975: Selandia Baru sekarang memiliki dua saluran TV dengan kedatangan, tunggu saja. Jaringan Dua. NZBC dibubarkan dan digantikan oleh Televisi Satu, Televisi Dua dan Radio Selandia Baru. Upaya nyata pertama dalam menghubungkan komputer universitas terjadi ketika Universitas Victoria dan Massey University mulai bereksperimen dengan mesin Burroughs mereka, menggunakan sepasang modem sinkron yang beroperasi pada 4800 bitsec. Rencananya untuk berbagi sumber secara on-line secara optimis dijuluki Kiwinet namun linknya turun lebih dari yang diperkirakan. 1976: Pengguna telepon diberi otonomi yang meningkat dengan pergeseran dari jalur partai lama, sistem berbasis operator, ke STD (telepon pelanggan atau panggilan tol) yang tersedia di sebagian besar pusat pada tahun 1976. Pemanggil pelanggan internasional, tanpa harus melalui Operator, juga diperkenalkan seperti tombol push dan speaker phone. Sebuah peningkatan besar jaringan telekomunikasi nasional terjadi pada bulan Maret. Kabel Tasman 1 antara Auckland dan Sydney mulai beroperasi dalam usaha patungan antara Kantor Pos Selandia Baru dan Australias OTC (Komisi Telekomunikasi Luar Negeri). Dasar-dasar untuk jaringan DSIR didirikan dari sekitar bulan April 1976 ketika Laboratorium Fisika dan Teknik DSIR (PEL) menciptakan Bagian Riset Komputer (CRS) di kampus Gracefield di Lower Hutt. Mereka juga membangun jaringan area luas pertamanya yang berbasis di sekitar minicomputer dan peralatan komunikasi Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP-11 dan pengontrol komunikasi. Pada bulan Oktober beberapa teknologi, dan banyak pelajaran yang dipetik dari Kiwinet. Memberikan dasar untuk menjadi VicNet. Sebuah jaringan tujuan umum yang dapat menghubungkan mesin-mesin tersebut di kampus Universitas Victoria ke Massey Universitys B6700 menggunakan jaringan pengalihan paket Kantor Pos X.25. Kesuksesan itu dicapai dengan sukses sederhana di kampus Victoria, Massey University kehilangan dana untuk leased line dan tidak pernah berhasil dikaitkan. Pada bulan Maret di Departemen Ilmu Komputer di Waikato. Frustrasi karena tidak diberi sumber daya komputasi yang sesuai dalam belanja besar pemerintah sehingga berkonspirasi dengan sekelompok pengacara untuk membeli DEC PDP-1170 yang baru dengan biaya 548.000 yang kemudian segera dijual ke bank pedagang dan kemudian masuk kembali ke Universitas di sewa untuk membeli kesepakatan Kementerian Pendidikan, sangat marah tapi Ilmu Komputer di Universitas Waikato dengan cepat menjadi topik yang paling banyak dicari. 1977. DSIRnet, jaringan lengan penelitian DSIR pemerintah dibuat dengan menggunakan protokol yang dimodifikasi dari CSIRONET Australia yang setara tahun 1975: Dari Desember 1979 sebuah tautan melalui satelit Intelsat IV, bersamaan dengan peralatan bareng NEC 820 yang baru di Auckland, memungkinkan pelanggan internasional Trunk (ISD) dari Selandia Baru. Sirkuit Intelsat yang disewa ke Organisasi Satelit Maritim Internasional (Inmarsat), yang Selandia Baru telah bergabung pada bulan Juli 1979, berarti pengguna lokal dapat memperoleh akses instan ke Tymnet dan Telenet. Dua jaringan data Amerika Utara yang merupakan bagian dari Oasis (Overseas Access Service for Information Services). Layanan ini terbukti populer di perpustakaan New Zealand, karena mereka dapat mengakses database Dialog dengan 18 juta entri bibliografinya. Tahun 1980an: Kurangnya investasi oleh Kantor Pos berarti jaringan tidak berada dalam posisi untuk menangani pertumbuhan yang dibutuhkan untuk layanan generasi berikutnya. Menjelang pertengahan 1980an jaringan kelebihan beban. Ada kemacetan besar. Di Auckland, bursa mencatat runtuhnya dan di seluruh negeri terjadi seringnya terjadi tabrakan jaringan. Kantor Pos, sebuah departemen pemerintah yang terbatas dalam apa yang bisa diinvestasikan, menjadi semakin tidak efisien. Pemerintah mulai melihat masalah dan cara membuat departemen yang lebih efisien dan sebagai bagian dari reformasi ekonominya mulai melihat cara memasukkannya ke pijakan komersial. Di bawah Undang-Undang Usaha Milik Negara tahun 1986 ini dibuat beberapa perusahaan perdagangan negara termasuk Telecom. 1980. The Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand (BCNZ) dibentuk untuk menggabungkan saluran TV1 amp TV2 di bawah satu perusahaan. Kantor Pos mendukung sekitar 800 leased line dan 1800 modem. Ketika DARPA membutuhkan tim untuk menerapkan tumpukan protokol TCPIP teranyarnya di VAX di bawah Unix, ia memilih Berkeley Unix sebagai platform utamanya karena kode sumbernya tersedia dan tidak terbebani. This was a major turning point in the evolution of Unix and the various tools that improved connectivity, thereby assuring the success of the nationwide and global goals of APRAnet, and TCPIP as a communications protocol for the future. 1981 . New Zealands first and only indigenous home computer systems were created. The Poly. Development of the Poly named after Wellington Polytech where it was developed was targeted at school use with a colour screen and obscure proprietary networking system. The Aamber Pegasus, supported multiple computer languages and had a network version which connected to a server. Both attempted to meet the requirements of the governments computers in schools initiative which never produced orders large enough for the machines to become a commercial reality. 1983: United Nations World Communications Year . celebrating the imminent convergence of computers and communications technology. The New Zealand Post Office began trialing a satellite-based X.25 packet switching data transmission service ( Pacnet ) and installed the first fibre optic cable in a 14km pilot system between Wellington and Lower Hutt carrying several hundred telephone circuits. 1984: The bureaufax service with its attendant beepers arrives, allowing busy individuals to know when they are being paged. Victoria University established a campus network based on IBMs computer protocols. The DSIRs Applied Maths Division accesses the Australian CSIROs Cyber 205 supercomputer, for finite element modeling of the Maui gas field . Access is initially through a Post Office direct link then through its Pacnet, packet switching service. Cabinet had approved Pacnet in September 1979 specifically for business customers with dispersed terminals or teleprinters linked to a central computer, operating at 2400bits to 48kbitsec. It became commercially available from August 1984 considerably expanding the use of the Post Office digital data network ( DDN). E lectronic Funds Transfer at Point-Of-Sale ( eftpos ) appeared on the retail scene, only five years after the countrys first Bank ATM was installed. Digital switching and transmission took a giant leap forward in November 1984 when the first Wellington-Auckland link using digital microwave and co-axial cable technology went live after two years planning. The 24 million system had delivered a 640km digital link that could transmit voice and data at 140Mbitsec per circuit. At the same time new computerised stored program controlled ( SPC) exchanges were cut into the network. A major SPC upgrade was installed in the Auckland area from 1984 after a massive 20 percent upsurge in toll traffic caused by an election year boom and rising business confidence. Regardless subscribers continued to face delays and overloading. 1985: New Zealand was divided into 22 districts for postal services, each under control of a chief postmaster and 17 telecommunications districts, each under the control of a district or regional engineer. Computers at Auckland University Computing Centre and the Victoria University campus were connected by leased line using the 4800bitsec modems bought for the 1975 Kiwinet project. Fibre optic cable of much higher capacity than that trialled in 1983 was in widespread use, carrying thousands of phone circuits over 50km without repeaters, between main cities and many towns. Canterbury University Computer Services Centre established a connection from its Prime 750 computer to the Post Office Pacnet X.25 network at 10kbitsec and set up a crude email system to log in to other university computers. Robert Biddle . a PhD student with help from programmers Ken Lalonde and Alan Bowler, used the connection to log-in to the Mathematics Department at the University of Waterloo in Canada and beyond. The first meeting to establish a common backbone network between universities and research departments were held in August at the annual Telecommunications Users Association Conference ( TUANZ ) with representatives of the New Zealand universities, DSIR and MAF attending. Government departments were invited but no-one turned up. A second meeting in November 1985 was called to coordinate the development of a national research network. The only agreement reached was on a common protocol, t he Coloured Book Suite . In late-1985, John Houlker at Waikato University had discussions about connecting to the Internet backbone with CSnet founder Larry Landweber at the University of Wisconsin, a key node on the NSFnet backbone. 1986: An agreement was now in place for Waikato University to connect into CSnet backbone and take responsibility for the dot. nz country code . Although it was a weird way to connect, with Waikato still caught up in a mix of protocols . at least a strong connection had been made directly through to the US Internet backbone. The fax was now a major communications tool, with 800 fax machines operating compared to 200 in 1984. The Post Office began commercial operation of its Starnet electronic mail service enabling messages to be left for business subscribers, government departments or universities in electronic mailboxes on computers. Users would log in to the remote database to download or send messages via the Pacnet network. Canterbury Universitys Computer Science Department spent its furniture budget on a DEC VAX 750, installed Berkeley Unix (BSD4.2) and named the system Cantuar . Canterbury ended up with UUCP connections to the University of Waterloo in Canada, Victoria University in Wellington, Melbourne University and the Mathematical Centre in Amsterdam. Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) was not only a UUCP site, it was also a node on the Australian SUN-III network, a Sydney University initiative with its own homegrown protocols and an X.25 link. VUW used this connection to get news, and in turn Canterbury got its UUCP news from VUWs Computer Science Department. By February 1986 Victoria began providing links to the DSIR and Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF) networks . By mid-year Waikato, Massey and Canterbury Universities had joined in using the US links for mail and access to newsgroups. Richard Naylor . the IT manager at Wellington City Council, began clustering disparate IBM and DEC mainframes within the council to create CityNet . and facilitate the use of email across departments. This was initially done through Telecoms Pacnet before it was discovered that connecting to a certain address would get the whole council on the Internet . After establishing an email gateway with Victoria University, Naylor began looking at ways to better use the fibre optic links between council buildings and speed up communication, ultimately creating an inter-network with Victoria. 1987 . In February the New Zealand Vice-Chancellors Standing Committee on Computing decided to follow international precedents and have three second level domains within New Zealand. The dot. ac domain or academic domain would cover universities, polytechnics and schools. The dot. govt domain would cover all government departments and a third domain dot. co. nz would cover all commercial organisations. Under the State-owned Enterprises Act of 1986 the New Zealand Post Office was split into state trading companies including NZ Post, Postbank and Telecom Corporation. On 31 March 1987, the newly created Telecom became an SOE. Historically the New Zealand computer industry has probably been one of the biggest creators of new jobs, and the relationship between telecommunications and computers goes hand in hand. The Government could make a fortune out of Telecom by refusing to let anyone else do any telephone work and massively overcharging for internal toll calls, which is what the old Post Office used to do. This certainly punished, and effectively distorted the New Zealand computer industry, State-owned Enterprise minister Richard Prebble, Network World February-March 1990 The Government-owned Telecom Corporation purchased the assets of the old Post Office for 3.2 billion and began work on improving the services and network as the telecommunications market progressively deregulated. While Telecom had launched an Advanced Technology Group headed by Dr Murray Milner . who was himself using the Internet at 2.4kbitsec from his base in Silicon Valley where he was studying, Telecoms focus remained on X.25. It would be another decade before it was seen to take the Internet seriously. Telecom launched its 025 mobile network and CDPD mobile data network and by the end of 1987 had 2000 customers. It cost 2.84 for a 3 minute fixed line toll call between Auckland and Wellington and 4.20 for a 3 minute off-peak call to Australia. There were 38,000 remaining party line phone customers. All main DSIR sites were now part of the DSIRnet and all universities were connected into SpearNet (South Pacific Educational and Research Network), which used the Janet protocols for mail, file transfer and transport layer with lower layers provided by Telecoms Pacnet X.25 network. Victoria University had managed a connection to North America (University of Calgary) and to Melbourne University using Unix ( UUCP ) protocols and connected to DSIR Applied Maths, Fisheries Research and ICL Computers mainly for USENET and email. Victoria operated a mail gateway between the networks but the different protocols require technical wizardry to negotiate. Sorting through this dilemma ultimately inspired the creation of second level domains service (2lds) in the. nz namespace. While Waikato University was connected to the Internet backbone via CSnet and technically operating the dot. nz country code . it had been convinced by Telecom the way forward was X.25, and was still trying to cobble together an efficient solution to share its store and forward access with other universities. John Houlker from Waikato University and Professor John Hine from Victoria Universitys Computer Science Department, went to the US looking for a better deal. They began negotiating with Tony Villasenor, head of NASAs scientific Internet, and Jim Hart a high performance computing specialist from NASAs Ames research centre, who wanted to get the Internet into the Asia-Pacific region to connect a variety of science projects. They would pay for half the connection to New Zealand but there were details to work out, costs to cover and Australia wasnt happy at the prospect. Closed ISDN trials were planned from 1987 and it was expected that by 1990 a narrowband digital network would be commercially available, enabling users to operate telephone, videotext, packet switching, facsimile and various data networks as one integrated service. In 1990 the hype continued but very little had happened. 1988 : Telecom installs large capacity fibre optic cables with up to 72 fibres around the central business districts of the largest cities. It also delivers international capacity to the Waikato University where the first Internet Exchange ( NZIX ) is created around an Ethernet switch using IGP routing protocols. Victoria University decides to use routers rather than bridges on the new Ethernet LAN that will link the new Computer Science building to the existing Computer Center, purchasing them from an unknown company called Cisco . rather than the better known Wellfleet or Proteon. VUW suggests that ECL (a division of the TV repair people Tisco) become the country agents for Cisco (ECL became Case, then Dowty, and later Logical, purchased by IBM ). Five Cisco MGS routers were ordered, Cisco were unable to deliver them on time and substituted the larger AGS models for three of them. Clear Communications (MCI-Todd Communications) delivers two 512k circuits to Hamilton, terminated at state-of-the-art Cisco 4500 routers. Telecommunications equipment exports total 6.6 million. Telecom raises eyebrows and tempers by hiking the price of its Megaplan (2Mbitsec premium ISDN service) by 114 percent in November (28,000 to 58,000 per month). There are 2300 cellphone (brickphone) subscribers to the Telecom network. 1989 . In April New Zealand becomes the first nation in the Asia Pacific region with a full connection directly into the US Internet backbone. NASA is paying for half the cost of the 9.6kbitsec analogue ANZCAN undersea link from the NSFnet node at Hawaii through to Waikato University. The first IP link out of Waikato was a SLIP connection between Victoria and Waikato running over the DSIRs internal serial network. It was to be another six months before the link between Victoria and Massey University was live and many months later before all universities joined the official New Zealand Internet node. On April 1, the statutory monopoly enjoyed by the old Post Office was axed, allowing anyone to compete with new State-owned enterprise, Telecom . Under new management an extensive restructuring programme was underway, thousands of jobs were axed and outdated systems replaced with modern computerised equipment. However the commercial aggression of the refocused telco surprised many. TUANZ (Telecommunications Users Association) and ITANZ (Information Technology Association) slam Telecom for its huge increase in Megaplan charging and by August the first call for the Commerce Commission to investigate the monopoly telco for making excessive profit and using anti-competitive measures is made. Some were still prepared to pay for the service. The United Building Society connected its Christchurch and Auckland offices, aggregating 30-ISDN channels, with a 500,000 Megaplan 2Mbitsec voice and data link. Competition arrived for state-owned television in the form of TV3. The old BCNZ was disestablished to make way for an autonomous commercial television company, the State Owned Enterprise, Television New Zealand. UHF television frequencies were offered to private enterprise. The new Broadcasting Act resulted in the formation of New Zealand On Air and the Broadcasting Standards Authority. TV3, the first privately owned free-to-air television network, owned by Canwest, debuted. On June 6, New Zealand broadcasting and telecommunications experts engaged in an interactive satellite based videoconference between Wellingtons Victoria University and Ohio State University to discuss the possibilities of life in a deregulated environment . The Wellington students had been exchanging emails with their US counterparts using the BitNet service and voice connections. They were simulating what life might be like if widespread broadband ISDN were available in the electronic communications environment everyone expected would soon be at the heart of university education. Pacsat, the parent company of alternative New Zealand tolls company Telpac, announced it might relocate its Skyswitch and manufacturing plant to New Zealand ahead of its proposed 21 million local network. After registering as a cutprice network operator and months of hype, Telpac manager and fraudster Glen Nicholls . having left a trail of debts behind, disappeared. US network giant Compuserve acquired Applied Computing and established a local base providing information services to subscribers of Telecoms Pacnet service. Handypoint (National and Westpac) and Cashline (ASB and Trustbank) merge into a single eftpos network known as Electronic Transaction Service Ltd . Telecommunications equipment exports had doubled from 1988 to 15.6 million. PacRim . the first step in the worlds longest undersea fibre optic cable was signed off in Auckland in September. The local connection in the 124,000knm 560Mbit link into Hawaii would interconnect with the Tasman 2 cable running to Australia. With Waikato now operating as a gateway for the Internet . the remaining universities take a direct 9600bitsec feed and begin operating as Kawaihiko . expanding their existing relationship with the DSIR networks. The speed of the TCPIP connection with Hawaii had doubled from 2.4kbitsec to 4.8kbitsec. The IT staff at the universities operating routers, switches and other technology required for Internet access now knew more about this technology than most telco engineers. The first Internet service provider (ISP) Actrix began operation in November with a UUCP link to Victoria Universitys Computer Science Department for email and news feeds. Wellington City Council replaced its UUCP link with a direct Internet connection to the Waikato gateway. In the lunatic years of the 1980s no-one listened because so many clever young men in glass towers, moving pieces of paper around, had everyones attention. It is important however, not to loose sight of the fact that no true wealth is ever created until somebody makes something physical. Thats what creates careers and jobs, Electronic pioneer Sir Angus Tait, June 1999. The 1990s: With deregulation in telecommunications, broadcasting and banking creating a more openly competitive environment than anywhere else in the world, the debate is how to maximize those opportunities, particularly as the Internet and the worldwide web shift from arcane terms to mainstream use. The term information superhighway seems to promise an end to the tyranny of distance with telcos and techno visionaries waxing eloquent about a science fictional future where New Zealand could lead the world. Talk of broadband and convergence of computing, broadcasting and telecommunications add to the frustration as the so-called competitive environment fails to deliver. 1990. Pakuranga MP Maurice Williamson became the countrys first Information and Communications Technology minister in Jim Bolgers National government and appoints Reg Hammond and Colin Jackson to his IT Advisory Group. A special unit within the Commerce Commission is working overtime dealing with complaints about Telecom, among them six businesses facing strong opposition as they attempt to compete in the newly deregulated marketplace. Action is bought under Section 36 of the Commerce Act covering anti-competitive activity. The legal battles go on for years. Telecom itself is inundated with complaints from the public about double billing from its locally developed ICMS billing system which at 73 million is already triple the planned cost. Telecom has sacked 10,000 people by March 1990 and made a 300 million profit. It also spent 2 million on a PR campaign to try and ease public concerns. Telecom insists broadbandquot ISDN (30 x 2Mb channels) should be available to all New Zealand homes and businesses by 1995. It never happens. There are now 58,000 mobile or cellular telephone subscribers. Pay TV company Sky Television broadcasting on the UHF band enters the market. In January MCI-Todd Communications. having gained network operator status in New Zealand is battling with Telecom over an interconnection agreement. An in principal agreement is reached by August but six months later final details are still being debated. The consortium involving the local Todd Corporation and the state-owned Railways Corporation in partnership with US telecommunications plans to create a nationwide network using fibre optic cabling that straddles the main railway lines. It becomes known as the Alternate Telecommunications Company and begins private line operations in December. On 1 June Kiwi Cable Company registered as a network operator, later becoming Saturn Communications. Also in June, Telecom is sold to wholly owned subsidiaries of Bell Atlantic and Ameritech for NZ 4,250 million. This is the biggest business deal in New Zealands history and the sixth biggest deal in the world in 1990. The plan is that the sale will help pay of growing public debt and ensure consumers get a much better deal. Public debt and consumer frustration continue to rise. There are now more complaints about Telecom than any other business. KCBBS makes Usenet and email available. There are a total of 386 newsgroups and a full news feed is 9 - 12 Mb. The Kawaihiko universities network upgrades from dial-up to dedicated DDS links and in November the NZGate analog link between Hawaii and Waikato is upgraded with a 14,400bitsec cable link. Initially the cost of the international link was divided equally among six universities but as use proved increasingly disproportionate, volume charging was introduced based on traffic to and from each university, late in 1990. 1991: According to Network Wizards there were 1193 New Zealanders connected to the Internet In 1991, within two years this had rocketed to between 10,000 -15,000, one of the fastest growth spurts in the world. Richard Naylor convinced the Wellington City Council to launch Citynet . a FreeNet-based community network offering every citizen free dial-up access to council information. It is the second local authority outside the US to offer such a service. The council also introduced a Gopher server to publish council information online. In July the Victoria University-Waikato Internet link is upgraded to 48kbitsec to cope with the growth in traffic. Telecoms new owners having learned what they needed about operating in a deregulated environment take the money and run . Telecom was listed on the New Zealand, Australian and New York stock exchanges after Ameritech and Bell Atlantic sold down 724.5 million ordinary shares at NZ2 each. The Alternative Telecoms Company . now owned equally by TVNZ, Todd Corporation, MCI and British Telecom, and becomes Clear Communications Limited offering a full tolls service exactly two years to the day (April 1, 1991) since deregulation. Some issues including rural connection remain outstanding. It begins services in May with 7000 customers claiming to shave 12-15 percent off Telecoms toll charges. Canwest, owners of TV3 launch a second free-to-air channel TV4, Telecom introduces ISDN (integrated services digital network) and on April 5 th local business call charging makes that service impossible expensive as it uses two channels and Telecom charges for both. Telecom also outlines plans for full optical switching, wireless broadband ISDN . metropolitan networks running at hundreds of Mbitsec and on-demand integrated broadband and mobile services over the next decade in its Vision 2000. In August Telecom introduces its Centrex system, a virtual PABX to centralise inbound and outbound calls or diversions to branch offices, cellphones, or voice mail systems. Fujitsu partners with Compuserve . which has 700 users across both countries and plans to set up two large databases in Australia and New Zealand. It hopes to have 100,000 local users within 5-years. Netway Communications managing director Malcolm Dick believes competing with his half owner Telecom is good and healthy. Hes using Aussat for trans-Tasman communication and considering leasing space from Clear Communications. There is talk about the government actually getting involved in helping to fund a science and research network with the National Library joining with the universities Kawaihiko network. Dr Ian Forrester, the first chief scientist of the newly formed Ministry of Science Research and Technology (MoRST), championed the idea but when he left it languished. A bid was then put forward for funding based on a Cabinet directive in 1991 for a nationwide network initiative. All the interested parties got together but then there was a dust up with the DSIR claiming it had developed its own systems and directions which threw a spanner in the works. DSIR then made its own bid to run the network and managing the Internet While some funding for DDI links was made available, failure to agree on a common strategy, meant any government support for a common network turned to custard. 1992: At the peak of bulletin board (BBS) popularity around 1990-1992, there were estimated to be around 150,000 computers in New Zealand homes, over 1 00 BBS and thousands of subscribers . many logging into multiple discussion boards in search of specific information and mental stimulation. In Feb the 14.4kbitsec analogue satellite link to Hawaii was replaced with a 64kbitsec satellite link to NASAs Ames Space Research Centre in California. A nzstatus posting on 3 March 1992 ( Message-ID: lt1992Mar3.110908.6750waikato. ac. nzgt) says gtWe are expecting to have sun outages affect circuits from gtNASA Ames to Australia (AARNet, 139.130 net) and New Zealand (Univ of gtWaikato, net 130.217) for the next 4-5 days (March 1-5, 1992). Victoria University Computer Science Department transformed an unauthourised debt situation . created by the cost of its international connections to keep pace with the Internet evolution, into a quarter of a million dollar revenue stream . It was charging ISPs and businesses for use of its bandwidth. Without any research funding and few who understood what they were up to, they were simply being entrepreneurial . Even Auckland University handed its modems over to Victoria which was also providing services to p ioneering ISP Actrix, run by J ohn Vorstermans and Paul Gillingwater . Soon Actrix was on campus and handling the commercial side of the business. Growing demand from home users wanting access to news groups and email resulted in the Jon Clarkes Status bulletin board system transforming into the Internet Company of New Zealand in 1992 and relocating its equipment from a Parnell garage to Airdale St, opposite the Telecom central Auckland exchange. Soon it was expanding into the business market and one of its first customers was the Pelican bar on Elliot Street, run by brothers Tim and Nick Wood. Meanwhile the Crown Research Institutes Act 1992 split the DSIR into nine Crown Research Institutes (CRIs) from July. MAFnet was also reworked as a profit making enterprise and they all began competing with each other for funding and resources. That delayed the formation of the new Tuianet (sew together or bound together) management group, administered by the Tuia Society . with a mandate for connecting New Zealand to the Internet and the inter-networking of universities, the National Library, the CRIs and the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology. Ultimately the DSIR network became CRInet managed by the newly formed Industrial Research Ltd (IRL) and it was agreed to go with frame relay technology to standardise and speed up the network links across the country. Tuia continued to work behind the scenes to mange domains and cover off all the related administration issues to do with ensuring nationwide coverage, and as demand grew, increase the speed and availability of bandwidth. From late 1992 the more robust network, which now connected all seven universities, began operating at 48kbitsec over Telecoms frame relay network, with digital leased line links to smaller sites. Meanwhile Clear and Telecom finally reached a full agreement on local service interconnection and engage in a price war over toll calls. Wellington City Council upgraded its Internet link to 48kbitsec. In March Telecom switched on the 200 million Tasman 2 submarine fibre optic cable between Australia and New Zealand - the first stage in the massive Pacific Cable network due to ring the Pacific basin by 1994. Telecom introduced the No 7 signaling to add value to 0800, 0900, automated calling card services, Centrex and private networking and e nhanced ISDN services, introducing the concept of the intelligent network. Telecom claimed to have invested 3.3 billion in its infrastructure to date. In the first step toward transparent and open local government using the Internet, IT manager Richard Naylor put the Wellington City Council by-laws on-line. The World Communications Laboratory (WCL) is established to promote New Zealand as a centre of excellence for developing and using broadband connections capable of supporting voice, data, video and graphics. Theres initial funding from government, business and carriers, then after enthusiastic support from science and research leaders and senior ministers, the government and Telecom pulled the funding plug and WCL went down the gurgler. Making sausage and creating a competitive market is not always a pretty thing to watch, Peter Shirtcliffe, chairman Telecom, TUANZ conference, Aotea Centre, Auckland, 11 August 1992. Telecom has become the defacto industry regulator it owns or controls most of the critical inputs, it competes with all the firms to which it supplies those inputs and, by and large, it makes the rules under which competition is permitted to take place, Commerce Commission report, 1992. 1993: Internet governance was at crossroads, it could no longer be contained within the academic world and while the Tuia Society AGM i n 1993 agreed it was no longer representative no other body seemed willing to step up. With Waikato charging Tuinet for international traffic and Tuianet was now being charged by Waikato for international traffic and had to pass on costs to its members . In October Nevil Brownlee from the University of Auckland released his NeTraMet, network traffic meter to help universities and ISPs with IP traffic accounting. The Tuianet members planned to use their collective buying power to force the carriers to deliver a better deal for bandwidth but while they were negotiating the deal, the carriers went to each university separately effectively destroying their collective bargaining stance. Tuianet effectively lost control of the development of networking for research and education in New Zealand because everyone went to different suppliers. The parties rarely met again. The Government had failed to step in and take the lead in creating a framework or funding for this network which was essential to the nations future academic and research capabilities. It took a hands-off approach, leaving it up to commercial interests. And so it was, government rampd was held to ransom by market forces from that day on and demand for Internet services continued to escalate. The increased flow of traffic forced the doubling of capacity from the Warkworth satellite station to NASAs Ames research facility in Californias Silicon Valley to a 128kbitsec satellite circuit. The 500 million PacRim East undersea fibre optic cable between New Zealand and Hawaii, a partnership between Telecom, ATampT, KDD and Telstra, Australia becomes fully operational in June, offering voice, video and data transmission. Victoria University undergraduate Nathan Torkington reckons he was the first to create a real web site in New Zealand with actual useful information on it. He was part of the WWW Talk mailing list where all the software developments were posted and ended up sharing ideas and data with web pioneer Tim Berners Lee and Mosaic founder Mark Andreessen. Torkington became sought after to share his web development skills with Kiwi academics and pulled together everything he knew to created the first Worldwide Web FAQ which was published on 6 April 1993 in the Usenet news groups and was ultimately reprinted in quota ton of booksquot. Colin Jackson is convinced his efforts inside government meant New Zealand was one of the first nations to get an official government web server up and running with help from the experts at Victoria University. His team also ran the first election night web server with real time results which didnt actual melt down. The NASA subsidised Internet satellite connection with the US backbone doubled in July for the third time in three years to 256kbitsec . Rather than the clumsy PACCOM moniker for the access gateway at Waikato, the term NZGate began to be used . In June and again in August S imon Lyalls Internet Access in New Zealand FAQ was posted on Usenet to help bring newbies up to speed on Internet etiquette and how to find their way around. Meanwhile Bellsouth launched the first mobile phone network to compete with Telecom. Telstra purchased 20-year rights to operate a second mobile network then sold its spectrum to Bellsouth in return for mobile services. Ameritech and Bell Atlantic had by this stage reduced their Telecom shareholding to a combined 49.6 percent. According to Statistics New Zealand average residential phone call pricing plummeted 50 percent between 1987 and 1993. In July KCBBS became Internet connected with a 48kbitsec to Auckland University Computer Center. CellularVison . an Auckland based company promises a 49 channel wireless TV and data network which could also be used for phone calls and on-line shopping is promised. It never happens. Trevor Rogers MP, introduces Technology and Crimes Reform Bill into Parliament which would have the effect of making ISPs responsible for quotobjectionable materialquot carried by their networks. It never happens. There are about 10,000 Kiwi Internet users. 1994: NASA had been scaling back its funding for the international link to Waikato University and the cash ceased to flow from 30 April 1994. However Waikatos controversial volume charging approach ensured there was sufficient cash in the coffers to cover ongoing charges including increases in bandwidth. Later in 1994 Waikatos international link to the West Coast of the US, supplied by ATampT, had an embarrassing outage . It failed during during a demonstration of the commercial possibilities of web connectivity at the Computerworld Expo in Auckland. A technician at the ATampT exchange in San Francisco had accidentally knocked out a plug. It took six hours to sort out. A sort time later the ATampT circuit failed again forcing Waikato to put in a back up circuit to the NASA gateway with Sprint. Clear and Telecom are engaged in major legal battles over competition law ending up with a Privvy Council decision backing Telecoms right to maintain its monopolistic activities. In June Telecom forms a joint venture with Taranaki Polytechnic for a cut-down Internet access product for schools and other special interest groups, called NZ Online . In September Telecoms Netway Communications announces a retail ISP service for corporate customers will launch in six months. It doesnt. BellSouth network is now transmitting data and soon achieves 80 percent coverage. According to Net Wizards and a report by Colin Jackson at the Ministry of Commerce, New Zealands Internet goes through a rapid growth spurt . leading the world in uptake before settling back to normal 80-100 percent growth rates which are now common. In October 1994 Naylor runs a webcast from the Michael Fowler Centre of the Tawa Schools Music Festival. There were 16 viewers in 12 countries but it was something few people had done before. At this stage Mbone tools were just starting to emerge, and the Rolling Stones famous Internet concert was still a month away. The third stage of the Pacific cable network connecting New Zealand and Australia with Asia via Guam comes into operation by the end of the year. Early in 1994 the number of registrations of dot. co. nz exceeded dot. ac. nz registrations. Waikato University was keen to back off from its management role of what was now clearly no longer an academic network but a commercial enterprise. If the trend continued dot. co. nz commercial registrations would overtake the rest in May 1994 and thats exactly what happened. Frank March, John Houlker and others proposed an independent democratic organisation to take over the domain name service. In November, the Tuia Society held a public meeting to establish a new body to manage Internet infrastructure development. 1995: Internet Society of New Zealand (ISOCNZ) was officially incorporated in November and began to take over the responsibilities of manage the dot. nz domain and the business surrounding overall responsibility from Waikato University for Internet development in New Zealand. There were approximately 2000 domain names in the. nz register. The Pacrim West cable (SydneyGuam ) came into service. Since acquiring spectrum in 1989, BellSouth had invested nearly half a billion dollars into building its nationwide cellular network and was pinning its hopes on a new digital mobile technology, known as Global System for Mobile communications, ( GSM ). It now had 95 percent coverage, the same as Telecom. Clear Communications had spent 8 million trying to resolve ongoing disputes over conditions and cost of interconnection before it reached an agreement on local service interconnection. Clear achieved an estimated market share of 23 percent during its four years of operation while Telecom had enjoyed seven consecutive quarters of revenue growth, and an earnings growth rate that ranked it with the top 15 percent of telcos worldwide. In January Telecom was in discussion with Microsoft about a joint venture. Telecom announced plans to construct a hybrid fibre - co-axial cable TV and data network to about 300,000 homes. It begins trialling its First Media programming with more than 20 channels of TV to the Auckland suburbs of New Lynn and Pakuranga promising an extended range of new entertainment and interactive information services are ahead. In April Victoria Universitys Internetworking Group changed its name to NetLink, offering leased-line, dialup and hosting services. By August it had taken over management of university Internet connections. The NZGate link at Waikato was upgraded to 1Mbitsec. Wellington City Councils Citynet stopped accepting new users. After operating alongside Iconz during 1994 Nick Wood moves his business, the Internet Home users Group (Ihug), across town and is soon joined by his brother Tim. In November In November 1995, stiff new competition arrives in the form of Voyager with the full backing of Australias largest ISP, Ozemail. Wellington pioneer Richard Naylor is at it again, positioning a web camera on Mt Ruapehu after it began to rumble and let off a bit of steam. He wrote some software, borrowed Jim Higgins laptop . and a cellphone from Telecom, acquired a Wellington City Council video camera and set it up so a PC server downloaded an image every 15 minutes. The site achieved three million hits in three months . In May 1996 Actrix introduced a 5 monthly community service which gave users free email through the non-profit PlaNet New Zealand network. ISP Cybernet launched as DoS (Denial of service) attack on Iprolinks public demonstration of the Internet in Auckland. Cybernets upstream provider Auckland University responded by disconnecting them. Nick and Tim Wood and their father John form Internet service provider Ihug (Internet home users group) and are quickly pioneering flat rate all you can eat dial up. Voyager launches, offering access for 10hr, and 0800 access. There are an estimated 84,420 modems in use in New Zealand (IDC) with connection capabilities rapidly moving up from 9.6kbitsec to 28.8kbitsec. About 60 per cent of companies now have LANs or WANS. There are 500 domain names in New Zealand registered with the US-based administration body IANA. According to the Statistics Department the telecommunications market is worth around 3.6 billion . Its estimated 23 per cent of New Zealanders have PCs at home. The Ministry of Commerce estimates 60,000 to 100,000 New Zealanders are online . There are about 12 ISPs, the standard fare is 10 per megabyte for downloads. Network Wizards says 53,610 hosts and 9,472,000 worldwide. 1996: Clear, now 100 percent owned by British Telecom, launched its ISDN offering in May and an ISP Clear in November. It had 330,000 customers and 20 percent market share, and reluctantly signed a new interconnection agreement with Telecom for two cents a minute for traffic termination. Telstra entered the market focusing on the corporate customer and began building fibre rings in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Kiwi Cable was investing 40 million in expanding its fibre network to pass 50,000 homes by the end of the year, working in closely with power companies to string up its cable. Telecom establishes an exchange in the US for international traffic. Telecom owned Netway Communications, a joint venture between Telecom and Freightways, began providing bandwidth and Internet-related services to business. Waikato Universitys NZGate stopped reselling international Internet bandwidth from Netway, opening up the wholesale bandwidth market to Clear and later Telstra. NZGate is scaled down and is replaced by the NZIX Internet exchange. Pronet . a cooperative between ISPs Actrix, Iprolink, and Plain Communications begins buying bulk backbone bandwidth from Telecom and Clear for network peering. ISPs are connected via frame relay. Citynet, Wellingtons pioneering experiment in community Internet access is decommissioned. NetLink moves into Christchurch and Dunedin. Telecom extends the rollout of its fibre-coax cable network in parts of Auckland and Wellington for delivery of its First Media pay television content services. Telecom claims 300,000 cellular customers and BellSouth around 40,000 - thats about 11 percent penetration, compared with Australia which has 17 percent. According to Paul Budde Communications, the year ended with cellular market revenue growing 53 percent over 1995 with 380,000 subscribers, up 16 percent. Telecoms ISDN service only has 500 customers growing to 1000 by the end of the year. Theres outrage that its charging too much (500 installation and 120-150 per month). Inevitably the world will be linked by broadband networks and if New Zealand gets a leading edge this could help us move from the traditional primary production sector into value added industries capable of matching international niche market demands. Computing and communications technologies will generate an entirely new way of life where distance and international markets will no longer be an impediment to product development, Dr Ian Forrester, New Zealands chief scientist, January 1992 Competition among ISPs changed dramatically in May-1996 with the entrance of Telecom Online Services (TOLS) which soon changes its name to Xtra . New Zealands Internet uptake is among the highest in the world growing 15 percent per month. There are now about 30 ISPs and more than 160,000 users. The Internet Company of New Zealand ( Iconz ) is top dog with about 12,000 subscribers, Voyager has about 10,000, CompuServe 6000 and Actrix 3000. Xtra is immediately in a commanding position through its access to every town and city and its huge marketing ability. The arrival of Clear communications Clear six months after Xtra again puts the wind up the fledgling market. Voyager halves its hourly rate to 5 and in August Xtra follows suit dropping its hourly rate to 2.50. The price wars take a toll on smaller ISPs with rates down to 1.50 per megabyte and .50 cents for local traffic. ISOCNZ in taking over the administrative role of managing the Internet hadnt entirely bargained on what that might entail. Most New Zealand domain names were still managed and moderated manually at Waikato University by Rex Croft who was considered New Zealands father of DNS. As the pressure came on Waikato began charging for its technical services and set a deadline to hand over the responsibilities. The commercialisation of the domain name space was done in a big bang exercise on July 22, 1996. A fee of 96.75 including GST and administration costs stuck in the craw of Internet users who had been used to getting domain names free. In October 1996 ISOCNZ had, on legal advice, established a subsidiary company, The New Zealand Internet Registry Ltd (trading as Domainz) to run the domain name register. The Internet Service Providers Association (ISPANZ) is formed to represent the interests of ISPs and their customers, largely in response to Xtras price cuts. In June Xtra boss Chris Tyler said Xtra is three months away from delivering an Eft-Pos direct payment service . It never happens. A major security issue with Xtra forces Telecom to shut down its mail server in August after it was discovered hackers could easily get access. Customers were advised to change their passwords. Ihug merges with Efficient Software . On October 12 there was Web coverage of the 1996 General Election . New Zealand has an estimated 241,000 pay TV subscribers and 5000 cable TV users and around 30,000 eftpos terminals. In March IT minister Maurice Williamson launches Impact 2001 How IT will change New Zealand. Words like e-commerce, multimedia, convergence and smart cards are now in everyday use. The second annual IT industry survey shows a 61 percent increase in exports of communications hardware to 142 million. A survey of schools shows nearly all schools have fax machines . There is now one computer per 18 students in primary schools and one per 10 students in secondary schools. More than half the computers were older than three years. The percentage connected to a modem in primary schools had increased to 37 (14 in 1993) and secondary schools to 73 percent (44 in 1993) The main obstacles for greater penetration were seen as the high cost and lack of teacher training. 1997: To date 95.7 percent of all New Zealand households have a telephone, comparable to Australia and higher than the US. Clear Communications . which now has an 8 percent market share, begins withholding interconnection fees from Telecom in February, and in July sues the government for failing to act against Telecoms alleged anticompetitive behaviour. By November Clear and Telecom agree on number portability and Clear begins providing local access service to Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Telecom launches its Internet access service I PNet in January as an 0800 gateway for commercial ISPs wanting national Internet access for local call prices. Concerns about the stability of the Internet in New Zealand were further fuelled in May when the main gateway at Waikato University became overloaded shutting down international access for eight hours. More secondary domain name servers ( DNS ) were added to the backbone. Clear pulled MCI circuits back to Auckland, to avoid tromboning international traffic to Waikato and back and Clear. Telecom, Telstra NZ began discussing peering in Auckland with a triangle of 2Mbitsec circuits provisioned between the three telcos as an interim measure. Aucklands iconic Sky Tower was the ideal location for an independent Auckland peering exchange (APE). Saturn Communications (Saturn) entered the residential phone market in Wellington after signing an interconnection agreement with Telecom. The industry complained Telecom was offering better prices for bandwidth to its wholly owned ISP Xtra (which now has 45,000 customers) than other ISPs. The Commerce Commission decides it is within its rights to do so. New Zealand was assured it had all the international communications capacity it would ever need with PacRim East . PacRimWest and Tasman 2 fibre optic undersea cables linking us to the rest of the world. By mid-1997 the entire capacity was booked up largely due to the quotremarkable growth of the Internetquot. In July Telecom New Zealand, Optus and MFS Globenet (later acquired by WorldCom) agree to sponsor the Southern Cross cable . Telecom announces a 5-year 30 million contract with Newbridge-Siemens to futureproof its backbone network with ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) technology. In August, British Telecom increases its stake in Clear to 50 percent taking over MCIs 25 percent shareholding. BellSouth and Singapore Technologies Ventures announced the sale of BellSouth New Zealand to the Vodafone Group for NZ750 million. In October Ihug is the first ISP to launch residential broadband using satellite bandwidth through an arrangement with PanAmSat to providing an additional path for inbound traffic. It serves Auckland customers via a microwave link from the Sky Tower at download speeds of between 256kbitsec and 2Mbitsec and expands to satellite coverage in 1998. After reaching about 30,000 Internet users in New Zealand Ihug ventures across the Tasman, offering bandwidth via satellite in Sydney and Melbourne. quotIm sorry but your call cannot be connected right now because of overloading, please try again later, quot Telecoms phone message that reappeared frequently in the late 90s as the public network was groaning under the weight of exponential Internet growth. Telecom pulls the plug on its HFC cable roll out and First Media content business after passing only 68,000 homes. It claims there are more appropriate technologies to carry fast data and video. It will continue to look at the relevance of fibre to the curb. Telecom and cable partner Ericsson are caught in a slew of law suits with contractors that goes on for another two years. In December Telecom launched a technology trial of DSL (digital subscriber line) technology from the Kandallah exchange in Wellington and hedged its bets upgraded another 11 exchanges for ISDN capability. A Ministry of Commerce report showed its tariffs were between 49-97 higher in many cases than similar markets so Telecom dropped ISDN prices twice, resulting in resulting in much increased uptake. It also reduces prices on the controversial 2Mbitsec Megalink and metropolitan DDS and links at 64kbitsec and above. In November 1997 Telecom announced a 700 million project to upgrade or replace 150 old NEC NEAC digital exchanges which it admitted were the bottleneck in its attempt to meet market demand. A decade later the NEACs in the system were still being blamed for bottlenecks. Telecom withdraws its membership of the Telecommunications Users Association (TUANZ) because of a perceived bias. ISOCNZ established a subsidiary company The New Zealand Internet Registry Ltd (trading as Domainz ) to run the domain name register. ISOCNZ registers 15,000 domain names. Its estimated there are 393,000 Internet users across business, education, government and home, an increase of around 46 percent over the previous year. About 30 percent of New Zealanders now have PCs. The Internal Affairs Departments Government within Reach (GWR) project launched in 1995 took two years to come up with proposals for the way forward, even then most werent acted on because less than one third of government agencies showed any interest. In 1997 the government Internet presence was further reviewed with a mandate to help close the gap between quotinformation haves and have notsquot and ensure equal access to all public data. The assessment was made that by 2002 a maximum of 60 percent of the New Zealand population would have access to the Internet so there was an urgent need for action. The government however still considered it was still too early to commit to a public network to distribute its information. The first hint of digital television becoming a reality for New Zealands free-to-air broadcasters came late in 1997 as Broadcast Communications Limited (BCL), the State-owned infrastructure company began re-broadcasting TV2 in digital format for 10-days from a van moving around Auckland. Over the past five years the New Zealand telecommunications market had stable growth of 8-11 percent per annum and has topped 4 billion for the first time including voice, data networking, mobile services, equipment, directories and related revenues. Mobile revenues overall were 368 million a 4 percent increase, representing a 36 percent growth in subscriber numbers to 520,000. In November the Ministry of Commerce proposed Telecom be required to produce separate financial statements for its local loop and other businesses and to undertake a full economic costing of the Kiwi Share Obligations . A further buy-back of shares by the Telecom in late 1996, meant Ameritech and Bell Atlantic had recovered 85 percent of their original investment. The company was now worth about 7 billion and the investors had graded the bulk of the profit (around 70 percent a year). In November 1997 Bell Atlantic and Ameritech having begun investing in more recently deregulated markets announced they were off. In the words of financial analyst Brian Gaynor . quotTheir combined 90 percent shareholding cost 3.8 billion yet they have received an estimated 5 billion from dividends, a capital repayment, share buyback and the sale of shares in the 1991 float and in 1992 and 1993Thus the two American telecommunication giants will exit New Zealand with an estimated total realisation, including dividends, of 11.5 billion, compared with the original investment of just 3.8 billion. quot 1998: In the past Internet traffic has had to travel to NZGate, sometimes via the US, before being distributed to users across town. Clear, Telecom and Telstra and Auckland and Waikato universities are working on ways to increase performance and improve routing. All traffic currently runs over a 512kbitsec frame relay connection. Some ISPs have alternative access into the US to avoid network congestion. Telecom and Clear take over running NZGate . the main Internet gateway into New Zealand previously managed and maintained by Waikato University with plans to increase its speed and robustness. Telecom is also looking at upgrading its IPNet digital Internet distribution network to more efficiently distribute video and audio to Xtra subscribers. The network operators NZNOG list is created in February and by June has 18 subscribers. There are now 26 companies providing various levels of competitive telecommunications services in New Zealand. In July the Internet Exchange (NZIX) is upgraded from a single Cisco CAT 5000 switch to two fully redundant Cisco WS-2926 switches. Netway Communications is pulled back into the Telecom fold in March to look after fully managed network services. Southern Cross Cables . half owned by Telecom, announces its plans to build a new fibre optic cable linking New Zealand with Australia and North America. Vodafone buys BellSouth which now has about 130,000 mobile customers compared to Telecom Mobiles 500,000. Telecom is involved in a number of legal proceedings including lawsuits mainly bought by Clear relating to Telecoms right to provide pay TV, Internet, bundling practices and terms of interconnection. Clear threatens to withhold billing information from Telecom. It now costs 60 cents for a 3 minute off-peak toll call between Auckland and Wellington (2.84 a decade ago) and 1.46 for a 3 minute off peak call to Australia (4.20 a decade ago). There are only 200 party lines left (38,000 a decade ago). In April the annual NUS International survey found that while New Zealand business local calls were among the cheapest in the world, business line rentals and national toll calls are among the most expensive. ClearNet begins selling international bandwidth on MCIs PacRim East cable to local ISPS. Voyager goes nationwide with its 56k service and has installed a satellite dish for better international links. Ihug now has two 34Mb satellite feeds into Napa Valley in San Francisco to earth stations in Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. It transmits 85 percent of its Internet traffic via satellite and adds Brisbane and Adelaide to its footprint. Iconz buys three new Cisco boxes which each take 120 phone lines. They announce grand plans to become a pseudo-carrier. They already offer videoconferencing and streaming video and are talking about voice over the Internet. By September Ihug and Xtra unable to keep pace with the dialup revolution booked up all new ISDN lines out of Aucklands Mayoral Drive Exchange for the next six months. Saturn Communications begins offering bundled voice, Internet and pay TV in Wellington passing 100,000 homes with 25 percent penetration. Capital Networks a joint venture with the Wellington City Council and 20 shareholders including Clear, Saturn and INL launches a new gigabit Ethernet network over fibre through the city centre. It eventually becomes CityLink which provides connectivity between customers and ISPs and begins organised peering services. The National Library begins peering over the Wellington Internet exchange (WIX) using a 386 notebook with two Ethernet cards running Linux, with Clear, Iconz, Netlink, Paradise, CityLink. Telecoms First Media content service closes and all services stop on July 31.Telecoms commercial trial of DSL fast Internet to 200 customers in Wellington continues. Theres talk of a roll out to exchanges across the country starting in March and services including cheap high speed data and pay-TV. Sky TV introduces its digital satellite service with over 40 channels plus delivering free to air and is the only digital platform in New Zealand. The average PC costs 3400, about 500 more than buyers in the US are paying. Modem speeds are now 56k for dial up access although everyones waiting for digital subscriber line (DSL) to roll out. There are now about 60 ISPs and varying reports about the number of Internet users. IDC estimates ISP revenues mainly from providing access services will reach in excess of 116.7 million by the end of the year. This year IDC downplays Internet user numbers to 315,020, other reports claim 501,256 (an initial projection from IDC used later by Telecom), while AC Nielson says its more like 741,000 largely from what the ISPs claim about their own take-up. Major ISPs make their own claims: Xtra (150,000), Clearnet (70,000), Ihug (about 60,000) Voyager (28,000). Not far behind are Iconz, CompuServe and Iprolink trailed by dozens of smaller players. There are different methodologies in play but the real figure is likely to be around 400,000. Kawaihiko . the defacto science and research network, shuts down at the end of 1998 and former gateway manager John Houlker . having done himself out of a job, joins Telecom International Networks. His first project was to establish new landing points for its international circuits in Los Angeles and at the Palo Alto Internet exchange. quotNew Zealand is an impoverished and undernourished Internet community because of what hasnt come out of Wellington. Were dealing with people in the US who have larger pipes than the whole of New Zealand. We have a controlled situation here where the key players are extracting as much as they can from the Internet community, Scott Mathias, rich media pioneer on moving his business to Australia in 1999. 1999: In December 1998 IPNet had clocked up 87 million call minutes and been through a major upgrade now Telecom used its monopoly position as owner of the local loop to force the entire Internet community to shift across to a new dial-up access network . Telecom claimed its public switched network was creaking under the strain of domestic Internet users hogging the lines and gave ISPs until 1 August 1999 to add an 0867 access number to IPNet or face a two cents per minute charge after an initial 10 hours on-line per month. ISPs were outraged . believing they were being blackmailed as part of a commercial tactic, when they were smack in the middle of a price war over flat rate accounts. The 0867 prefix also by-passed existing interconnection deals, depriving rival carriers of termination fees from Telecom. The deal was rejected by Clear. An inquiry was underway. In March the idea of a neutral peering point in Auckland is discussed. A cabinet and switch are installed on level 48 of the Skytower and the peering point officially referred to as APE (Auckland Peering Exchange) is opened in June (although the first routes arent actually exchanged until August). Later in the year the APE switch is replaced with new hardware donated by Roger de Salis at Cisco . Telecom becomes an Australasian company by buying 78 per cent of AAPT Australias third largest telco. It also signs an outsourcing deal for all its IT systems with EDS worth 1.5 billion over the next 10 years and launches a new nationwide payphone network using smart card technology. In May Xtra . the countrys largest ISP announces flat-rate access to the Internet for 39.95 a month after Clear announced it intended to do the same. Ihug has been offering flat-rate access for several years. In June Vodafone announced it would spend 200 million over two years upgrading its cellphone network to cope with increased demand. In June 1999, Telecom had, undercover of the 0867 confusion, Telecom finally let its fast Internet service out of the bag but the pricing and performance proved disappointing to many business and domestic users. Jetstream used RADSL (Rate Adaptive Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) technology, to compensate for the bad condition of much of our copper cabling, allowing data to be sent down a normal telephone line without impacting normal telephone conversations 69 exchanges were converted. No-one talking about pay-TV over DSL anymore it was simply a data service. The cheapest Jetstream service allows 600Mb of data a month for 89 (including GST). Installation and modem costs are extra. Clears 5.5 million switch, went live in Christchurch as a main switching point for tolls, data and local traffic for its South Island customers, previously, handled in Wellington. BT increases its shareholding in Clear Communications to 100 percent. Clear invests 14 million in fibre backbone technology with Nortel. Telstra buys ISP Netlink from Victoria University. TradeMe launches in March 1999 as a classified auction site like e-Bay, but initially specialising in computer parts and systems. In August Saturn launched its residential Internet access over its cable network through a cable-modem and an Ethernet card in the PC. Telecom plans to replace its mobile network with new cdmaOne digital technology optimised for high-speed mobile data transmission. Its expected to be live by 2001. The 2 billion Southern Cross cable lands on Takapuna beach in Auckland and once its live will be the highest capacity route between Australia, New Zealand and North America. The Government is satisfied with Telecoms initiative to force everyone onto its IPnet . as long as it doesnt charge for the service and quality is maintained. From 1 November, Telecom required all ISPs and Internet customers to use its 0867 prefix and to introduce a 2c a minute dial - up charge for residential line customers after 10 hours use which caused an industry uproar. Telecom customers were not impacted. The Government insisted Telecom must calculate and disclose the net economic cost of complying with Kiwi Share obligations and publish six monthly financial statements that split its operations into a local loop business and other services taking effect from 1 January 2000. Its estimated there are now 862,000 Internet users depending on who you talk to. There are 1.25 million mobile users - 858,000 with Telecom and 397,000 with Vodafone. Overall investment in telecommunications in New Zealand had been below the OECD average for most of the decade - virtually stagnating in 1999 at one percent growth compared with the international average of 7-9 percent. Close to 5 billion had been invested in the telecommunications market since deregulation but little had been done to decentralise the benefits. Neither of the major carriers had plans to move beyond high-density domestic, commercial and industrial areas. Meanwhile Telecom admitted its Internet gateway had reached capacity and added an extra satellite circuit to compensate. That move and plans by other major carriers came too late to prevent both official Americas Cup 2000 Regatta web sites being hosted off-shore and several entrepreneurial web sites relocating their content to the US. And the IPNet - 0867 debacle was far from over. The Commerce Commission complaint became the catalyst to help shift the Labour government from hands-off mode to taking a serious look at the existing deregulation model. It promised a major review of telecommunications market and the Commerce Act which was supposed to cover competition issues. A cheeky claim from Clear Communications that Telecom should be forced to split up its local network for use by competitors, was to also prove strangely prophetic. News . Theft As A Servant As the following cases demonstrate, almost all employee fraud in New Zealand is committed by longer-serving personnel (because they have learned how to circumvent procedures). Your best defence against employee fraud is to not hire people predisposed to theft in the first place. You are not alone - we can help. Call or E-mail us with your questions, or to learn more about how our background screening services can safeguard your organisation. To search for a specific name, press CtrlF on your keyboard Rotorua Accounts Clerk steals 289,000 in just 12 weeks 27 October 2016 Thirty-eight year old Tania Joy Malcolm, who has reverted to using her family name of Tania Whiteman was today sentenced in the Rotorua District Court for stealing 305,000 from her employer, Pearce Flooring. The offending occurred over ttwo years, although in just a 12 week period during 2015 she fraudulently paid herself 89,350.01 in wages and and a further 200,000 into her personal bank account. Malcolm was sentenced to two years and nine months imprisonment and order to pay 150,000 in reparations. Chief Executive stole more than 114,000 7 September 2016 Lynette Anne Collins-Watson, the 59 year-old Chief Executive of the Dunedin Kokiri Training Centre was today convicted of defrauding her employer of 114,431. The offending occurred for over six years, from 2009 to 2015 and included paying herself an additional 86,000 in wages and paying herself and her daughter almost 28,000 for non-existent cleaning of the premises. Collins-Watson will be sentenced in November. Teremoana Kimiangatau, a 53 year-old Accounts Clerk who had worked at Auckland Airport for over 18 years has pleaded guilty to defrauding her employer of 1.8 million. Kimiangatau diverted payments made to the Airport, into her own personal bank account. In 2013 she bought herself a home for 880,000. The charges were laid by the Serious Fraud Office and its Director was quoted as saying quotchecks and balances needed to be in place to detect fraud. Checks needed to be taken seriously as opposed to being treated as box-ticking exercisesquot. Kimiangatau will reappear in Court in November. Casino employee steals 45,000 in one month 28 June 2016 Chandra Komati Reddy, a 34 year-old Sky City Casino employee has admitted stealing 45,000 worth of casino gambling tokens in the space of one month. On more than 20 occasions he passed the chips to associates who then redeemed them at the casino for cash. Reddy will be sentenced later in the year. University Manager jailed for stealing 481,000 5 July 2016 Rebekah Procter, the former Manager of Contracts amp Facilities at Victoria University in Wellington was today sentenced for defrauding her employer of 481,000. Procter, who had delegated authority to approve the payment of invoices up to 10,000, created a fake company and awarded it university contracts for services such as elevator maintenance, cleaning and care of the university grounds. On 106 occasions over two and a half years she submitted phony invoices, with the money all being paid directly into her own bank account. Procterrsquos lawyer argued for permanent name suppression but her former colleagues strongly objected to this as the finger of suspicion had been hanging over them whilst the case was before the Court and Procter had enjoyed interim name suppression. Procter was sentenced to two years and five months imprisonment. Engineer jailed for defrauding employer of 2.2 million 25 May 2016 Paul Kenneth Rose, a 41 year-old Engineer at Might River Power Company (MRP) was today sentenced for defrauding his employer of 2.2 million. Rose was an Electrical Engineer at the company for eight years and his position involved purchasing parts on its behalf. However, he secretly created three companies in the name of his then girlfriend and those companies bought parts legitimately from overseas suppliers which were then on-sold to MRP at inflated prices, at one time marking up an item by 1380. The companies only client was MRP. Rosersquos long-running fraud was only discovered when a new senior engineer, going through some invoices could not believe that a local New Zealand company would stock such a unique part. He discovered through Facebook research that Paul Roses wife Jane, was operating the company under a different surname. Rose was sentenced to 3 years 2 months imprisonment. Jane Rose, was sentenced to 9 months home detention for assisting him with about 1.8 million of the offending. Paul Rose has prior convictions, having previously received a 12 month suspended sentence for receiving stolen property and arson. Fifty-two year-old Angela Wendy Paynter was today remanded for sentencing after being found guilty of stealing 173,000 from her employer, Hurrell Holdings, a clothing uniform supplier. Paynter worked for the company for six years and on numerous occasions diverted payments intended for the company, to her own personal bank account. She took cash from customers and spent it on herself and manipulated the payroll system to increase her salary. She used a company credit card to buy goods for herself. Paynter will be sentenced in March. HR Manager imprisoned for stealing 400,000 27 January 2016 Charmaine Herron, a 44 year-old Human Resources Manager for a Christchurch law firm was today sentenced for stealing 400,969 from her employer. The offending took place over nine years and involved her falsifying 148 payroll records to conceal her thieving. The sentencing Judge described her offending as fuelled by greed and sentenced her to three years imprisonment, ordered her to pay 50,000 and that when released from prison she not obtain employment that involved handling money. The Judge suppressed the identity of the law firm on the basis that publication would likely cause it further financial loss. School Manager admits stealing 795,000 in nine months 6 January 2015 Tessa Fiona Grant, a 40 year-old Commercial Manager at Waikato Diocesan School for Girls today admitted stealing 795,000 from her employer during nine of the 14 months that she worked at the school. Grant spent the money on buying land, a horse (including international travel for the horse) and a 40,000 diamond ring. Grant, who was paid an annual salary of 125,000, will be sentenced in March. Long-serving employee jailed for stealing from her employer 299 times 18 December 2015 Suzanne Marie Davies, who had worked at the Tawa branch of Zip Plumbing for more than 20 years was today sentenced in the Wellington District Court following a five-week trial in which a Jury found her guilty of 299 charges of theft from her employer. Over a four year period, the 60 year-old Office Administrator stole more than 900,000 by writing out fraudulent cheques for her own benefit. During her trial Davies claimed (presumably to justify her thieving) that her relationship with the companys owner had changed and she did not feel valued as a key member in the administration of the company. Suzanne Davies was sentenced to four and a half years imprisonment and ordered to pay reparations of 32,000 within one month. General Manager stole 232 times 30 October 2015 Jennifer Ann Taylor, the 43 year-old General Manager of the New Zealand Jersey Cattle Breeders Association was today setenced for stealing from her employer. On 232 occasions she diverted money from the Association, into her own personal bank account and used her company credit card to misappropriate 66,500 Taylor, who was paid an annual salary of 91,000 and provided with a company car, stole a total of 312,000, spending the money on her wedding, home renovations, dental work, schooling and sport fees. In just eight months alone, during 2008, she used her company credit card to buy personal items and services worth 14,500. She also wrote 41,700 worth of company cheques for personal expenses. Her annual salary had been 90,000 and included a company car. Her offending was traced back seven years ndash the oldest financial records the Association still held, although she had worked for the Association since 1993. Taylor was sentenced to two years and seven months imprisonment and ordered to pay 235,956.12 in reparations. McDonalds employee jailed for stealing 166,000 30 June 2015 Christine Tiongson, the 53 year-old Manager of the Bombay branch of McDonalds restaurant was today sentenced in the Pukekohe District to two years and three months imprisonment. As the Manager, Tiongson was able to authorise cash refunds to customers but an internal audit during 2014 disclosed disproportionately high refunds being paid out when Tiongson was on duty. After an investigation she admitted the thefts and was dismissed but her stealing did not stop her getting employment with another restaurant chain - Mexicali Fresh. Office Manger for 10 years steals 196,000 27 May 2015 Gillian Budge, the Office Manager at the Christchurch firm Southern Engineering Solutions for more than a decade, was today sentenced for stealing from her employer. Over a five year period, from 2008 to 2013 Budge defrauded her employer over 60 times to steal a total of 196,742.22. The theft was only uncovered when Budge went on holiday and the ownerrsquos wife filled in for her and discovered the company owed 100,000 in unpaid GST to Inland Revenue. The owner said knowing he had been betrayed by someone he trusted for so long made it difficult for him and his wife to trust others. The couple isolated themselves from their friends, were forced to delay their wedding, and had to put their two year-old daughter into childcare full-time so his wife could take over the office manager role. The owner urged other business owners to be more vigilant so they did not end up in the same situation - including carrying out criminal checks on any prospective employees. Electoral Commission employee steals 62,000 and sets fire to office 7 May 2015 Silia Tuifao, a 26 year-old employee at the Electoral Commission has been convicted of stealing 62,780.11 from her employer and setting fire to the Commissionrsquos Wellington office, causing damaged valued at 86,123.40 She was sentence of eight months Home Detention, and ordered to pay 13,000 reparation. Long-serving employee jailed for stealing 372,000 18 February 2015 Dionne Guinness, a 42 year-old officer worker was today sentenced in the Tauranga District Court for stealing from her employer, Sportcraft Marine. Guinness who had worked at the company for nine years, admitted stealing 352,698 from the company during 2010 to 2014. Her offending was only discovered when a GST refund that the owner was urgently waiting on, failed to arrive. Enquires established Guinness had deposited it into her own bank account. The impact of her stealing for so long was that the owner had had to lay off two employees because of the financial difficulties stemming from her offending. Guinness was sentenced to two-and-a-half years imprisonment and ordered to pay reparation of 300,000 within 60 days. Long-serving employee jailed for theft 21 January 2015 Lesley Hunt of Tauranga was today sentenced for stealing 146,175.60 from her employer, The 54 year-old was a trusted employee, having worked at Triac Lighting, Sound and Visual Hire for 15 years, but from April 2010 until she was caught in October 2014, she repeatedly diverted company money into her personal bank account. The companyrsquos owner who had had to put money into his business because of Huntrsquos thieving said quotShe was someone I would tell everything tordquo. But his wife questioned how Hunt was living beyond her means and had the money to build hot rods and go on cruises Hunt was sentenced to 23 months imprisonment. Accounts Manager imprisoned for stealing over frac12 million 9 December 2014 Tiffany Hewitt, a 31 year-old Accounts Manager was today sentenced for stealing more than 551,000 from her employer, an Auckland design firm. Hewitt had worked for the company for a decade, stealing from it for much of that time. Her offending was only discovered by chance, when she took Maternity Leave, and discrepancies in the accounts began to emerge. When she learnt the company was investigating, she contacted her lawyer and said she had stolen over 100,000. The sentencing Judge described this as a gross understatement and that the betrayal of trust represented by the offending was quotbreathtakingrdquo. The company, whose identity the Judge suppressed, treated its employees as family and had even paid for Hewittrsquos university studies that allowed her to gain a Bachelor of Commerce degree. The Judge added that Hewitt and her husband had enjoyed an quotextravagantquot lifestyle with her spouse quotdrifting alongquot as a partial beneficiary. She was sentenced to three years imprisonment. Dairy company employee stole 188,000 2 December 2014 Lorena Bailey of Whangaparaoa was today sentenced for stealing 188,694 from her employer, Avondale company Epicurean Dairy Ltd. The 58 year-old, who the Judge described as having a quotfull-blown gambling addictionquot was sentenced to the maximum term of Home Detention - 12 months - and ordered to pay 10,000 in reparation. A 25-minute PVL Integrity Test could have alerted her employer to Baileyrsquos addiction to gambling before she started stealing from them. Trust Consultant imprisoned for stealing 472,000 22 October 2014 Joanne Christine McGregor, a 41 year-old Trust Consultant at the Christchurch office of Perpetual Trustees was today sentenced for stealing from her employer. Over a period of four and a half years, McGregor stole 472,000. She tried to excuse her offending by claiming she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder following the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010 and 2011, however, a third of her stealing has occurred before the earthquakes. Indeed McGregor had stolen from her employer on 22 February 2011 - the day of the second earthquake - and she was at lunch when some of her colleagues were killed when their building collapsed. McGregor was sentenced to three years and 10 months imprisonment and ordered to pay 50,000 in reparations. Samuel Andrew Journee, a 26 year-old Christchurch Bank Manager with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in International Business, was sentenced today for stealing 92,201 from his employer. Journee set up false accounts, using the names of friends and family. which he accessed 657 times over a seven-month period during 2013. He also used the password of an ex-girlfriend, who previously worked at the bank, to load and approve credit facilities on the fake accounts Journee, who repaid the money he stole, but not the losses associated with the Bankrsquos investigation into his thieving, was sentenced to 10 months Home Detention. The Judge suppressed the identity of the Bank. Secretary forged CEOrsquos signature to steal 643,000 22 August 2014 Mechelle Catterall, the 36 year-old Executive Assistant to the CEO of Sovereign Insurance was today sentenced for forging his signature over a 15 month period, to steal 643,000 from the company. Total losses to the company, including the theft itself, and the subsequent investigation, came to about 1 million. Catterall (also known as Mechelle Arahanga) was sentenced to two years and nine months imprisonment. Bar Manager stole 91,000 7 August 2014 Jane Bridget Hamilton, a 37 year-old bar manager at the Rib Bar and Bistro in Hamilton has been convicted of stealing 91,679 from her employer between January 2010 and November 2013, on 166 occasions. She said she had spent the money on her lifestyle and had nothing to show for it. Hamilton was sentenced to nine months Home Detention, 200 hours of community work, and ordered to pay 30,000 reparation. Bank Manager jailed for stealing 400,000 28 July 2014 Jenna Lee Robinson, a 29 year-old Manager at a Queenstown bank was sentenced today after admitting stealing 402,386.01 from her employer, the identity of which was supressed by the Judge. The offending occurred over a two-year period and involved Robinson creating 16 fictitious accounts with loan and overdraft facilities, which she then drew on. She used the money as a deposit on a house, furniture, and overseas holidays in Canada, Japan and throughout New Zealand. Robinson was sentenced two years and seven months imprisonment. Travel agency worker stole from employer 104 times in six months 1 July 2014 Dina Kais Jan, a 30 year-old employee working at the Head Office of travel agency, Flight Centre, was sentenced in Auckland today for stealing more than 117,000 from her employer on 104 occasions in just six months. She would move funds into bogus accounts and then text her partner who would immediately withdraw the money from an ATM. Some of the stolen money was used for overseas travel including a 25,000 shopping spree in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Her lawyer, Rob Samuel, made a fanciful submission to the Court that if Jan were convicted, quotshe would never work againquot, But the Judge disagreed and entered a conviction, saying prospective employers should be aware of a history of dishonesty offending. Jan was sentenced to five months Home Detention. Auckland Council employee forged supervisorrsquos signature 12 June 2014 Eseta Apineru, a 36 year-old accountant employed by Auckland Council was sentenced today for stealing 24,340.85 from her employer, the Auckland Council. Between April and October 2013 she used her delegated financial authority to approve credit requests, which were in fact false, and paid the money into her bank account. Apineru was able get away with the fraud because she would photocopy her team leaders signature of authorisation onto the relevant forms. She was sentenced to 300 hours Community Work, 12 months Supervision, and ordered to repay to repay 6000 to the Council at 30 a week. Shipping Clerk jailed for stealing 173,000 28 May 2014 Kelly Jane Mackley, a 27 year-old clerk was sentenced today in the Christchurch District Court for stealing 173,318 from her employer, Anglo Pacific International. During the ten-month period January ndash November 2013 Mackley wrote out 86 company cheques to herself. She spent the stolen money on her preoccupation with food, on-line shopping, and trips to Australia. The Managing Director of Anglo Pacific told the Court the offending had had a huge financial impact on the business, its cash flow, and profitability. Bonuses to other staff had not been able to be paid. Mackley was sentenced to two years and four months imprisonment, and ordered to pay reparations of 30,000. Long-serving Practice Manager ordered to pay 120,000 to Medical Centre 9 May 2014 Bernadine Hull, the Practice Manager at the Papakura East Medical Centre has been ordered by the Employment Relations Authority to repay her former employer 103,378.42 for missing money the ERA determined in a judgement she was responsible for. She was also ordered to pay interest of 4432.53 and a further 12,029.23 the Practice had spent on its investigation. Evidence submitted to the ERA by forensics accountants, Deloitte, found that a total of 157,816 was unaccounted for since Hull had been promoted to the position of Practice Manager in May 2001. Her duties had included financial management and banking. Hull first started working for the Practice as a Receptionist in 1996, however, owing to legal limitations on making claims for recovery, the ERA could only order the repayment of money missing during the six year period July 2007 to July 2013. When financial discrepencies were detected, covert cameras were installed in the Reception area during a live audit investigation and on one occasion a shortfall of 1,165.50 was found between the money counted and photographed in the evening and the money deposited by Hull into the Practice account. Hull was invited to view the video evidence and to comment, but declined and resigned shortly afterwards. She subsequently unsuccessfully lodged a personal grievance for unjustified dismissal but it was rejected by the ERA, and she was instead ordered to repay the Medical Centre almost 120,000. Hull is extraordinarily fortunate that her employers did not refer the matter to the Police for criminal prosecution. School Principal stole 30,000 from decile one school 6 May 2014 Two days into their trial, Colleen Margaret Gray, the 66 year old Principal of Mayfield Primary School in Otara, Auckland, and her husband, Bruce Kenneth Gray, changed their pleas to guilty and admitted defrauding the decile one school of more than 30,000 Colleen Gray defrauded the school by raising fake invoices in the names of fictious teachers to companies owned by her husband. They used the money for a trip to London and three trips to Australia, and Colleen Gray also used her school credit card to pay for meals at high-end Auckland restaurants, flowers, and valet parking at the airport. The court was told that during the time of the Grays offending the school was strapped for cash and trying to save every dollar. When the couple were first charged in 2012 Colleen Gray declared to the media quotWe are completely innocent. We have nothing to hide. We will fight these chargesrdquo. Colleen Gray was sentenced to a year of Home Detention and 150 hours community service and her husband was sentenced to 10 months Home Detention. PVL Update (29 July 2014): The Grays disputed their sentences and took them to the Court of Appeal today. Before hearing the Appeal, Justice Rhys Harrison warned the couples lawyer that if the Appeal was unsuccessful the Grays could have their sentences substituted with terms of imprisonment as the original sentences were generous ones. The Grays immediately abandoned their Appeals. IT Manager defrauded employer of more than 1 million 5 May 2014 Jimmy Ming Miu, a 47 year-old IT Manager was today sentenced after earlier being found guilty in the Auckland District Court of 55 charges of defrauding his employer, McKay Shipping, during the period 2000 to 2006 Miursquos fraud involved the purchase of computer hardware and software from Avanti Systems and Avanti Systems Integration companies that Miu had control of. He invoiced his employer for the equipment and in his role as IT Manager also approved the invoices for payment. But the goods were never supplied, not required, or hugely overpriced. When Miursquos 1 million fraud was discovered he fled to Australia, but was extradited back to New Zealand by the Serious Fraud Office. Miu He was sentenced to three years and three months imprisonment. Treasurer stole 150,000 from pre-school in six months 21 March 2014 Hemi Jay Matenga was today sentenced in the Waitakere District Court for stealing 149,005 from the Nor Western Cook Island Early Childhood Centre, From 2010 to 2012 the pre-school had been the subject of scathing reports by the Education Review Office for its poor performance and educational outcomes. A new management team was put in place but it allowed Matenga, who had been a member of staff during the review period, to remain on in a voluntary capacity as its Treasurer. Matenga then went on to steal 150,000 in just six months, from December 2012 through to May 2013. The theft was so financially devastating that staff were unable to be paid for two months. Thirty year-old Matenga was sentenced to 22 months imprisonment. The sentencing Judge declined to order that Matenga pay reparation. Employee stole 1.1 million 12 March 2014 Tina Emma Esau was today sentenced in the Christchurch District Court after earlier pleading guilty to stealing 1,142,280 from her employer. Over a four year period, from 2009 to 2013, the 31 year-old employee made almost 500 transfers from her employerrsquos bank account to her own. In a victim impact statement, the employer, which has name suppression, wrote of the sense of betrayal it had towards Esau. Esau claimed about 60 of the money she stole was spent on a gambling. A PVL Integrity Test administered to Easua before she was offered employment might have alerted the company to Esaursquos predisposition to gambling, and her unsuitability for employment. Esau was sentenced to four years and three months imprisonment and ordered to pay 100,000 reparation on her release. PVL Update (12 June 2014): Esau appealed to the High Court against her sentence, arguing that the stolen money quotdid not really occasion major financial hardshipquot to the victim. The High Court dismissed the appeal. Farm manager stole 300,000 of property from employer 6 March 2014 Dean Thomas Herd, a 38 year-old Farm Manager was today sentenced in the Invercargill District Court after pleading guilty to 31 charges of stealing more than 300,000 worth of stock and farm equipment from his employer, the Criffel Deer Farm, Wanaka, The offending occurred over a six year period from 2005 to 2011. Herd was sentenced to two years and four months imprisonment and ordered to pay 2377.50 reparation. Credit Union employee steals 220,000 22 October 2013 Denise Topia was today sentenced to two years and three months imprisonment for stealing 220,000 from her employer. For almost four years the 48 year-old had worked three days a week at a Credit Union but mis-used her trusted access to the Credit Unionrsquos account to commit what the sentencing Judge described as premeditated offending. Topia was further ordered to pay 25,000 reparations. Woman stole 457,000 from employer 3 October 2013 Janice Raewyn Keenan, aged 54, was today sentenced in the Gore District Court of stealing 457,639.95 from her employer, Hokonui Rural Transport, between December 2008 and April 2013. When the firmrsquos clients paid their bills by cheque, Keenan would deposit the money into the companyrsquos Social Club account, to which she was a signatory, then she would withdraw the money for her own use. In order to do this it was necessary to forge the signature of a second signatory to the bank account. She spent the money on mortgage payments, accommodation, and providing her children with money, but she could not account for the total amount stolen. Keenan admitted 52 charges of dishonestly using a cheque, representative of 217 offences, and one representative charge of forgery. She was sentenced to three years and 10 months imprisonment It is interesting to note that the year before joining the company, Keenan had been a Director of a family logging business that collapsed owing more than 700,000 to creditors. The Liquidators reports noted that they had had difficultly locating and corresponding with Keenan, locating the company records, and locating the companyrsquos assets. And there had been investigations with respect to the companyrsquos relationship with the IRD and the directorrsquos recklessinsolvent trading actions. Presumably Hokonui Rural Transport did not undertake any pre employment screening before employing Keenan. Receptionist stole 380,000, forged her own defence lawyerrsquos name 27 September 2013 Janine Mears, a 32 year-old Receptionist employed at Gilmour Motors in Dunedin was today sentenced for stealing 380,000 from her employer. From 2006 to 2012 Mears used various methods of defrauding her employer, but mostly changed the payee details on customers cheques so that she could deposits them into her own bank account, or the accounts of members of her family. Three months jail was added to Mears sentence after she admitted that whilst on remand, she forged the names of her defence lawyer and the Crown prosecutor on a letter to her bank asking it to unfreeze one of her accounts. Mears was sentenced to four years and three months imprisonment. The judge said his sentence took into account her lack of remorse and the fact her thieving almost put the company out of business. Long-serving employee stole almost 100,000 2 July 2013 Raewyn Margaret Thompson was sentenced today for stealing from her employer, the Hamilton branch of the Patent Attorney firm, James and Wells, Thompson, aged 46 and who now goes by her maiden name of Kerr, spent 26 years working for James and Wells but over the four year period 2008 ndash 2012 stole 96,543.78. She spent the money on a beach front home at Whitianga, new cars, landscaping and art works. Thompson was sentenced to six months Community Detention, nine months supervision and 200 hours of Community Work. Outside Court, a spokesman for the company said the amount taken by Thompson was quotsignificantly largerquot than claimed in the charges, but it was not worth the drawn-out legal proceedings to pursue it any further. He said their only reason for proceeding with the criminal charges was to make sure Thompson did not move on to another unwitting employer. In fact, Thompson had managed to get another job whilst awaiting trial and was sacked by that employer when he learnt of her offending. Hotel manager stole 107,000 in two years 4 June 2013 Jose Enrico Buenaventura, a 35 year-old senior manager at the Spencer on Byron Hotel in Takapuna was today sentenced for stealing 107,000 from his employer over a period of two years ndash about 1,000 a week. He was sentenced to11 months home detention and ordered to repay the money at 150 a week with a lump sum payment of 35,000 by December 2013. The General Manager of the hotel described the sentencing as a quotslap on the wristquot. Insurance Officer imprisoned for stealing 494,000 4 March 2013 A 35 year-old Insurance company employee was today sentenced in the Wellington District Court on false accounting and money laundering charges. Lady Bernadette Cooper (ldquoLadyrdquo is her first name, not a title) made 112 fraudulent transfers of client funds over a five year period into her own bank account, totalling 494,828.74 Cooper had worked for Assure, which was taken over by Axa then merged with AMP and during this time discovered a way to steal client funds. Her offending was never detected by her employer(s), but instead, after leaving the company and developing a Christian faith she voluntarily confessed what she had done. She used the money to purchase four cars (115,000), sent 18,000 to overseas family members and spent the rest on personal expenses. Cooper was sentenced to two years and two months imprisonment. IRD employee imprisoned for 165 frauds 7 February 2013 In the Hamilton District Court today Anita Gail OConnor of Ngaruawahia was sentenced after last November admitting to defrauding her employer, the Inland Revenue Department, of more than 225,000. Fifty-nine year-old OConnor worked for the Department for more than 17 years but over a period of five years she corruptly used her access to tax payers personal details to steal their identities. She stole birth certificates submitted by taxpayers as identification, altering them to create new fictitious identities that allowed her to open fake bank accounts, apply for passports and IRD numbers. She paid two others to assist her with altering the stolen identifications. She put in 14 fake tax refund applications complete with fake birth certificates. OConnor took voluntary redundancy from the Department in August 2009 but her false tax refund applications meant her offending continued on into the following year with refunds paid by IRD into various accounts that she controlled, up until November 2010. IRD first became suspicious when genuine taxpayers contacted it saying that it had deposited money into bank accounts they had never opened. OrsquoConnor spent the money on cars for herself and her daughter, gambling, groceries and shopping. She claimed to have given 100,000 to gang associates who were threatening her, but the Judge dismissed this claim as ldquohollow and fancifulrdquo and said OrsquoConnorrsquos chronic gambling accounted for much of the offending. Anita OConnor was sentenced to two years and five months imprisonment. The IRD is pursuing OrsquoConnor for 362,000 which represents the stolen money, interest, penalties and costs associated with the investigation. A 25-minute PVL Integrity Test could have alerted her employer to OrsquoConnorrsquos addiction to gambling before she started stealing from them. Casino croupier convicted of cheating employer out of 52,000 21 January 2013 Bo Du, a 33 year-old roulette croupier who had worked for six years at the Hamilton casino was today sentenced for defrauding her employer of 52,000 and also of accepting a 15,000 gratuity from a casino patron, which is illegal under the Gambling Act. Du was sentenced to two years imprisonment, converted to 18 months Home Detention, and ordered to make reparation of 20,000. Two other associates face similar charges. Office worker begins stealing within 5 days of starting work 30 November 2012 A 47 year-old Gisborne office worker was today sentenced for stealing 64,289 from her employer. The woman began stealing after just five days of employment, in December 2007, and her offending continued on until May 2012. The woman was sentenced to 12 months Home Detention and ordered to pay reparation of 10,000. Notwitstanding that the woman had previous convictions for similar offending, the sentencing Judge granted her permanent name suppression on family grounds. Employee destroys company records to hide 184,000 theft 21 November 2012 Shirley Ann Tomuli was today convicted in Christchurch of stealing 184,000 from her employer, but the Court said the full extent of the offending would never be known as she had destroyed the companys records. For over seven years the 62 year old fraudulently transferred money from her employerrsquos bank account, into the office social club bank account. And from that account she withdrew money, 499 at a time, for her own personal expenses. Tomuli was sentenced to 12 monthsrsquo Home Detention. Her former employer will have to take civil action against her to try and recover the stolen money. Garden shop employee jailed for stealing 455,000 5 November 2012 Darren Lindsay Thomason, a 36 year old Finance Officer at Waimea Nurseries in Nelson was today convicted of stealing from his employer. Thomason was hired in May 2009 but within eight weeks of starting had begun stealing from the company. He fraudulently transferred 436,610 of company funds into his own personal bank account and used a company travel card to charge up 19,000 in trips around New Zealand and Australia, visiting casinos and attending sporting events. Thomason was sentenced to three years imprisonment and ordered to pay 50,000 reparation, on top of the 20,000 he had repaid already, and the 80,000 that his mother had also contributed prior to his sentencing. In mitigation, his lawyer said Thomason had started gambling 15 years ago and became a heavy gambler five years ago. A 25 minute PVL Integrity Test could have identified Thomasonrsquos gambling addiction before he was ever hired and saved the companyrsquos directors and shareholders from what the sentencing Judge described as ldquooffending (that) would be felt for the rest of their livesrdquo . If you are employing staff based on your instincts, without undertaking due diligence pre employment background screening, then you are exposing yourself to the sort of financial losses this company has just suffered. Call us now for an obligation-free consultation on how you can protect your business from employee theft. Payroll clerk steals more than quarter million dollars in nine months 26 October 2012 Gladys Ruth Campbell, a 64 year-old Feilding Payroll clerk today admitted stealing 261,205 from her employer. Campbell was hired on a temporary basis in 2009 by Aztech Engineering in Lower Hutt to manage its accounts and the following year was made a permanent employee. But within weeks of joining the permanent staff she began stealing from the company and in just nine months, from March to November 2010, stole more than a quarter of a million dollars by making false entries in the companyrsquos MYOB payroll software, and creating fake creditors with similar names to existing suppliers. Campbell said she had a 700-a-day gambling addiction. A PVL 25-minute on-line Integrity Test could have identified Campbellrsquos gambling addiction. Campbell was remanded on bail for sentencing in 2013. University Manager imprisoned for 240,000 theft 23 October 2012 Graeme Geoffery Pettitt of Mosgiel, a 61 year-old Accounts Manager at the University of Otago was today sentenced for stealing from his employer Pettitt admitted inventing a fictitious creditor and creating a bank account in the name of Hadaad Syndicate. Over a seven year period he made 72 fraudulent payments totalling 238,846.61 into the fictitious account. He also invoiced various university departments for postage they had already been charged for and created fake journal entries to transfer money into a suspense account, from which he paid the fictitious creditor. Pettitt was regarded by the University as a senior and trusted manager and had sat at many meetings where it was discussed how the university could reduce its exposure to fraud. Pettitt, who claimed he had a gambling and alcohol addiction to support, was sentenced to two years and seven months imprisonment. Accountant stole 14,500 worth of g ift vouchers 19 September 2012 Anu Radha Sharma, an Accountant previously employed at the Farmers department store was today struck off as an Accountant by the Disciplinary Tribunal of the New Zealand Institute Of Chartered Accountants. The decision stemmed from Sharmarsquos earlier appearance on 19 June in the District Court on three charges of using a document for pecuniary advantage. Sharmarsquos duties at the store included receiving and reconciling gift vouchers that customers had used in exchange for goods, and then to destroy the vouchers. Instead she kept the gift vouchers for herself and also gave some to family and friends to re-use. Sharma was convicted and sentenced to four months Community Detention, six months Supervision and ordered to pay Farmers reparations of 14,544.24. The Disciplinary Tribunal found Sharmarsquos conviction reflected on her fitness to practise accountancy and struck her from the register. 110,000 stolen by Accountantrsquos employee 11 September 2012 Charlotte Emily OLeary, a 24 year-old administrator employed by the Timaru accountancy firm Martin Wakefield was today sentenced for stealing from her employer. In less than 11 months she was able to steal 110,318 before being detected. She spent the money on clothes, shoes and accessories, and overseas holidays to Fiji and Australia OLeary who has repaid less than 2000 since been caught, was sentenced to 12 months Home Detention and ordered to pay reparation of 9216, at the rate of 20 per week, thereby allowing her almost nine years to pay back less than 10 of what she stole. Bank Manager jailed 7frac12 years for 1.4 million theft 28 June 2012 A long-running employee fraud case concluded today when Susan Ann Bourton, a 36 year-old former Hamilton Westpac Bank Manager was sentenced on 81 charges of defrauding her employer of 1.4 million. Bourton would target vulnerable clients who did not know how to use phone or internet banking, and kept for herself the money they handed over to her. She also created accounts in customers names without their knowledge and altered loan documents to fraudulently obtain funds to buy a luxury lodge at Lake Karapiro. She resigned from the bank when she thought her frauds were about to be discovered, later moving to Ireland. However, she was arrested in July 2009 when she came back to New Zealand for a holiday. She managed to delay her trial for several years because she kept hiring and then firing successive lawyers she had engaged to defend her ndash seven lawyers in all. Bourton was sentenced to seven and a half years imprisonment. Second Ticket booth employee admits stealing 157,000 22 June 2012 Another ticket booth employee working at the front entrance of Te Puia in Rotorua (also known as the New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute) has pleaded guilty to stealing entry money paid to her by the public. Waikare Bernadette Te Moana, age 55, was today sentenced in the Rotorua District Court for stealing 157,000 of admissions money. Despite being aware that video surveillance cameras were in operation inside each ticket booth, Te Moana stole money without detection on 77 occasions over 2frac12 years. At sentencing, Te Moana agreed to the proceeds of the sale of her house being used to pay some of the money back. She was sentenced to nine months Home Detention. Seven months ago, Te Puia ticket booth employee Te Raumahara Elizabeth Pene was sentenced to two years and nine month imprisonment for stealing more than 324,000 of admission, again under the gaze of surveillance cameras. Read storygtgt These cases demonstrate that as a counter-fraud measure, video cameras are insufficient. If you have dishonest employees who set out to steal, they will find a way to succeed. The most effective method of preventing employee fraud is also the simplest (and cheapest) ndash donrsquot hire individuals predisposed to theft in the first place. Travel agent defrauded 179,000 20 June 2012 Timothy Kevin Bignall, a 35 year-old Wellington Travel Agent has been convicted of obtaining by deception after he was found to have poached clients from his employer and kept nearly 180,000 commission for himself. The long-serving Orbit Corporate Travel employee was caught arranging travel for clients, invoicing them using Orbit company letterheads and diverting payment to his own bank account amounting to 952,753. He paid for the services himself and kept the balance as his commission about 36 times from November 2009. After being caught Bignall repaid the commission to his employer. He was sentenced to 200 hours Community Work. The sentencing Judge was of the opinion that Bignall was intending to start his own travel agency. A 25 minute PVL Integrity Test can measure how loyal and accountable an employee will be. Marae employee stole 331,000 18 June 2012 Jocelyn Iwa Ngareta Renata, a 50 year-old Finance Officer employed by the Hoani Waititi Marae in Glen Eden has been sentenced in Auckland for stealing 331,626 from her employer. Renata had worked for the marae, a registered charitable trust, for over 17 years. When caught she said all the money had been spent on gambling. An examination of her account at a local casino revealed more than 600,000 had passed through it. She used her employerrsquos credit card to obtain 42,939 in cash advances at the casino and cashed cheques worth 18,149 from the Trustrsquos account, as well as overpaying wages to herself, and family members. She also pocketed nearly 3,000 paid to her by parents using the maraersquos childcare facilities. The marae employed a forensic accountant and lawyer at considerable expense to learn the extent of Renatas offending and the trust survived only by arranging a bank overdraft. In sentencing Renata to two years and three months imprisonment, the judge said her offending had caused the trust extreme embarrassment and put its reputation as a trusted recipient of public funds at risk. A 20-minute PVL Integrity Test could have identified Renatarsquos gambling addiction. Sales assistant stole 88,000 worth of copper piping 13 June 2012 Mark Tamati Leighton, a 33 year-old sales assistant employed by Wellington company Transmark was today sentenced on 37 charges of fraud involving the theft of 88,305 worth of copper piping from his employer, The offending occurred over a 12 month period and involved Leighton ordering the copper and then later cutting it up into smaller pieces and selling it for scrap, receiving 46,901 Leighton was sentenced to six months Community detention, 12 months Supervision and ordered to pay 40,700 in reparations over the next five years. He was further ordered to take treatment for a gambling addiction. Long-serving employee stole 109,000 25 May 2012 Gail Newburn (also known as Gail Curwood), a 53 year-old Accounts Clerk at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Christchurch has been convicted of 14 charges of stealing 109,231 from her employer. Newburn manipulated the hotelrsquos records, stealing money and then covering the transactions with a negative cash payment to give the appearance of a nil cash balance. The offending was only discovered after the hotel was forced to close following the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake - the lack of paying guests meant she could no longer alter the hotelrsquos accounts to hide her earlier stealing. Newburn, who had worked for the hotel for 13 years, avoided a sentence of imprisonment because of a 91,000 payment she made to the Crown Plaza as part of the 156,000 reparation sought by her former employer. She was sentenced to 12 months Home Detention and ordered to pay a further 29,000. Newburn has a previous conviction for theft by failing to account, from 1998. Cashier stole 104,000 25 May 2012 Yvonne Sheila Cummings, the 62 year-old head cashier at the Masterton Pakn Save supermarket was today sentenced for stealing 104,321.60 from her employer. Cummings had worked at the supermarket for six years and stole cash for 2frac12 years until caught last October. At sentencing, Cummings offered to repay the money at 10 per week, but the Judge said at that rate it would take her 200 years to pay back the full amount. Cummings was sentenced to 10 months Home Detention, and ordered to pay reparation of 10,000. John William Jackson was today sentenced to two years and five months imprisonment for stealing 571,340.67 from his Auckland employer, Air Res Comm Ltd. On 84 occasions over three years, the 62 year-old South African-born manager used the air conditioning companyrsquos office computer to transfer company money into his own bank account. Corrections official jailed for taking bribes 20 March 2012 Chanel Vern Scanlan, a 38 year-old Tokoroa Community Work Supervisor was today sentenced to two years and nine months imprisonment after earlier pleading guilty to 35 charges of perverting the course of justice Scanlan was employed to supervise convicted offenders sentenced to community work but instead took bribes in return for recording they had completed much of their sentence. Over nine months, Scanlan wiped a total of 2,700 community work hours off offenders sentences. One offender had 95 of his 100 hour sentence wiped. The sentencing Judge told Scanlan his offending had struck at the heart of the administration of justice. Bank Teller stole 69,500 20 February 2012 Fesueai Sue Ah Honi, also known as Fesueai Sue Alatimu, a 28 year-old teller employed by the Bank of New Zealand in Wellington for more than seven years was today sentenced for stealing 69,500 from the bank. She stole money from the bankrsquos ATM machines and also from an elderly female customerrsquos account, whose family thought their Mother was going senile because the withdrawn money could not be accounted for. Ah Honi was sentenced to ten months home detention, 200 hours community work, and ordered to pay reparation of 69,500. Long-serving employee jailed for stealing 170,000 of apples 10 February 2012 Teokotai Mokotupu, a 32 year-old Logisitics Manager who had worked for Moffett Orchards in Hastings since she was 17 years old was today sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for stealing 170,000 worth of apples, and apple packaging, from her employer. Mokotupu would sell apples to customers without the companys knowledge and keep the money for herself. The offending, which was said to have begun in January 2010, was only discovered by chance when one of the companyrsquos regular clients complained they had received the wrong order. Mokotupursquos lawyer said she was quotadamant she wanted to pay the money back, but the Judge said that at 50 a week that would take at least 70 years. Two clerks who had been employed for almost four years by Environment Canterbury (the Canterbury Regional Council) have pleaded guilty to stealing 82,000 in cash from their employer. For more than 20 months Catherine Anne Ihaka, age 56, and Amelia Taima Temo, age 24, repeatedly stole money that the public used as payment for the purchase of bus tickets. The pair originally faced 194 criminal charges but the prosecutor reduced this to a representative three charges to cover all the offending. Temo was sentenced to six months home detention and to ordered to pay reparation of 15,000. Ihaka was sentenced to six months community detention, 150 hours community work, and a reparation payment of 7500. further to 7250 she had put aside as a reparation payment prior to sentencing. School employee jailed for stealing 126,000 3 February 2012 David Don, the 44 year-old Executive Officer and Accountant at Patrickrsquos College in Wellington was today sentenced to two years imprisonment for stealing more than 126,728 from his employer. Between September 2006 and March 2011, Don made 107 dishonest transactions, including inflating reimbursement costs and withdrawing money from the schools bank account into his own. Also 20,000 of the stolen money was spent on prostitutes and a further 3,700 on a delux waterbed. Don had repaid about 12,500 and was eligible for home detention, but family members refused to let him live with them. Long-serving employee convicted of stealing 130,000 16 January 2012 Amanda Margaret Knight, a 44 year-old Lake Hawea part-time book-keeper was today convicted in Queenstown of stealing 131,627.87 from her employer, Back Country Helicopters. Knight who was first employed in 2004, stole on a weekly basis the entire time she worked for the company. Her offending affected the companys credit rating and placed it under severe financial pressure. Knight was sentenced to ten months home detention and 200 hours community work. The sentencing Judge said he believed Knight had stolen more money, which had not been accounted for and imposed six months post-detention conditions, including that she not obtain a job that involved access to financial accounts. Legal Practice Manager sentenced for stealing 374,000 15 December 2011 Peter James McClintock, the 63 year-old General Manager of McElroys Litigation was today sentenced in the Auckland District Court for defrauding his employer of 374,000. On more than 50 occasions he made false entries in the companyrsquos wages records to conceal the fact he was paying himself an additional 5,000 a fortnight in wages and on many other occasions he made unauthorised withdrawals from the Practicersquos Trust account and General account, using company finds to pay personal expenses, including the upkeep of a 20 year-old local Thai prostitute. McClintock, who had worked at McElroys Litigation for over 11 years, was sentenced to 12 months home detention and 300 hours community work. Lea Margaret Temm, the 55 year-old Manager of the Waipa Racing Club was today sentenced for stealing 162,172.38 from her employer over a period of ten years. Temm had had a 30 year relationship with the club, having first started out working for it as a cleaner in the 1980rsquos and over time moving on to being the Office Assistant, Administration Manager, and finally Secretary Manager in 2000. With access to the clubrsquos bank accounts she began paying herself double her approved salary, regular ldquobonusesrdquo and used club funds to purchase furniture and electrical equipment for her own home. To conceal her offending she would alter the Minutes of Club meetings, after they had been approved, to make it appear as though the payments she made to herself had been authorised by the Committee. Temmrsquos offending was only discovered after she resigned because of health problems and the newly appointed manager was asked to examine the clubrsquos financial position because it was on the brink of financial collapse. Temm was sentenced to six months home detention, having narrowly avoided a prison sentence because of a last-minute reparation payment of 85,000 made to the Club. The Clubrsquos President said it was more than just the financial burden they had been left with after a decade of theft. quotIts particularly hard when youve got someone you trust and theyre abusing that trust, quot he said. If you donrsquot have a background screening programme in place for your current and existing staff, contact us now for advice. Property Manager stole 53,000 3 December 2011 Stephanus Otto, an Upper Hutt property manager has been convicted of stealing 53,968.04 from his employer. Rent money collected by Otto on behalf of clients was instead deposited by him into his own bank account to fulfil a gambling addiction. Otto was sentenced to three months home detention, 100 hours community work and ordered to pay reparation. He was further ordered to undertake a gambling prevention courses. A 20-minute Integrity Test administered by PVL could have identified Ottorsquos gambling addiction before he was employed. Army Museum employee imprisoned for stealing 744 war medals 18 November 2011 Keith Davis, the 57 year-old former Registrar at the Waiouru Army Museum was today sentenced in the Wellington District Court for stealing 744 military medals and other antiquities from the museum between 1995 and 2002. The medals were valued at 233,155 and the other items, which included German uniforms from World War II, a statuette and 100 military histories valued at 25,700 Davies served as a territorial soldier in Canterbury and Wellington between 1977 and 2003, and was part of a peace monitoring group in Bougainville in 2000. He emigrated to Australia in 2005 and was arrested when he returned to New Zealand in September. Some 20 victim impact statements were put before the court and the sentencing Judge said Davies offending was premeditated and took place over a long time, adding it was a gross and wholesale abuse of trust. Davis was sentenced to three years imprisonment and ordered to pay 50,000 reparations. Only 300 medals were recovered Last year, a curator at the Museum was dismissed after being convicted of stealing weapons from its collections. Malcolm Stewart Evans (aka Joe Evans), was convicted of stealing an 1890rsquos Enfield sniper rifle valued at 10,000 and two bayonets. He was sentenced to four months home detention. The museum later got back 17 weapons and other items it did not know were missing. Public servant convicted of stealing 284,000 9 November 2011 Ropati Telea, a 27 year old Accounts Administrator employed by the Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) was today sentenced in the Wellington District Court for stealing 284,341 from the Commission. TAIC is the Government agency responsible for investigating air, sea and rail accidents and employs about 20 staff, with an annual budget of 3.9 million. The money, which was stolen over a four year period to February 2011, involved Telea making 179 unauthorised transactions from the Commissionrsquos bank account. His offending was only discovered two months after he had left the Commission, to enrol at a Bible College. Telea was sentenced to 10 months home detention, 300 hours community service and ordered to pay 10,000 reparation in a lump sum, plus 100 a week. At this rate it will take Telea 52 years to repay the money he stole. Ticket booth employee admits stealing 324,000 4 November 2011 Te Raumahara Elizabeth Pene, a 52 year-old employee at Te Puia in Rotorua (aka the New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute) was today sentenced to two years and nine month imprisonment for stealing more than 324,000 of admission money paid to her by members of the public. The offending occurred over a 2frac12 year period in full view of video surveillance cameras and at times Pene was stealing more than 1,000 a day. When questioned by police, she handed over nearly 4500, money she had stolen over the previous three days. Before sentencing, Pene offered reparation of 50 per week, but the Judge said at that rate it would take her 130 years to pay back the money she had stolen. PVL Footnote . A second ticket seller, 55 year-old Waikare Bernadette Te Moana was sentenced in June 2012 for stealing 157,000 worth of admission money. Story heregtgt Employee stole 1.24 million, organisation goes into liquidation 28 October 2011 Susan Terri Hagai, a 45 year-old Receptionist and Finance Officer was today sentenced in Wellington for defrauding her employer, the Hiberian Catholic Society, of 1,242,750. The theft represented almost 13 of the Societyrsquos assets and as a consequence its Credit Union is to be put into liquidation. Hagai had worked at the Society since 1994. She first began stealing in April 2004 and it continued on undiscovered until she was made redundant ten months ago when the Society outsourced it finance functions to an accountancy company. Hagai was effectivly stealing 600 a day for almost seven years. She then went on to steal 15,089 from her new employer, Hoff Holdings, the owner of several Wellington bars. Hagai was sentenced to four years and two months imprisonment. University Manager imprisoned for stealing 666,000 6 October 2011 Jonathan Kirkpatrick, the 53 year-old Manager of the Innovation Centre at Auckland University of Technology was today sentenced to three years and two months imprisonment for defrauding his employer of 666,000 over a period of 8frac12 years. On 82 occasions Kirkpatrick using his delegated authority to approve the payment of bogus invoices to companies he owned, for work that was never done. Kirkpatrick, who was paid an annual salary of 150,000 spent the money he stole from the university on maintaining a lavish lifestyle that included motor vehicles, wine and food for a resaurant he owned, and overseas holidays. In fact it was whilst he was holidaying in Thailand that his offending was first detected when a bank statement from one of his phony companies was noticed lying on his desk. Kirkpatrick who was a former dean of St Pauls Cathedral in Dunedin, was ordered to pay 20,000 reparations to the university. The total cost of the fraud and subsequent investigation cost more than 1 million. Financial Advisor imprisoned for stealing 90,000 4 October 2011 Fifty year-old Robyn Clare Bugg, a Financial Advisor, was today sentenced to two years and four months imprisonment for stealing 90,000 from her Thames employer, Watson Davies Transport. Bugg used the money to prop up a family business, the purchase of building supplies for her own home, the payment of road-user charges, fuel and servicing of her own vehicles, and even for paying family memberrsquos speeding fines. Her employer said the theft, had taken a massive toll on his business, and his wife was now suffering stress-related illness as a result. He added quotEven the publicity around the case has been bad for business, so we are still paying a significant price. quot The sentencing Judge said her premeditated and fraudulent offending had brought her former employers business quotto the brink of insolvencyquot. He ordered her to pay 91,435 reparation. CEO defrauds company of 147,000 3 August 2011 Arapeta Hamilton, the 53 year-old CEO of Kaikohe-based Ngapuhi Iwi Social Services Limited (NISS) was today sentenced to eight months home detention and ordered to pay 20,000 reparation after earlier being convicted of defrauding the company of 147,000 over a two year period. NISS was established by a Maori charitable Trust in 1997 to provide social services to disadvantaged children in the Far North and it received 1 million annually in Government funding. Hamilton had overall responsibility for the company and was given complete autonomy to run the business including signing authority for two NISS bank accounts Hamilton misused his position to write out 40 NISS cheques worth 86,588 to pay the mortgage on a house he owned, advanced himself 20,000 in wages, diverted 12,885 to Southside Company Ltd, a South Auckland nightclub that he wholly owned, and wrote a further 80 cheques out to the value of 28,045 to other companies he controlled. Employee with 30 years service jailed for stealing 200,000 2 August 2011 Mary Tautau, a 54 year-old supervisor at Hutt Hospital has been sentenced to two years and four months imprisonment after pleading guilty to stealing 198,274.46 from her employer. Tautau had worked for the hospital for more than 30 years. A Health Board spokeswoman said Tautau had been quota very trusted and respected employee who took advantage of this trust and her position as a supervisor to deceive management and her colleagues. Her actions have had a significant impact on staffrdquo. The fraud was described as quota substantial financial lossquot for the hospital. The Health Board said it had reviewed its cash handling procedures to make sure a similar fraud could not happen again. However, at PVL it is our experience that the most effective procedure any employer can implement is not to hire people predisposed to theft and dishonesty in the first place. Employment screening is a proven and successful defence against fraud and considerably cheaper and quicker than any other method used for preventing employee theft. Accountant sentenced to 5 years prison for stealing 4.2 million 21 July 2011 Gary Soffe, a 52 year-old Hamilton accountant was today sentenced to 5 years and one monthrsquos imprisonment after earlier being found guilty of defrauding a family trust of almost 4.2 million over a four year period. Much of the money he stole was spent on purchasing a large home which he renovated with a the addition of a medieval-themed wine cellar, gym, six-car garage, 80,000 sound system, solar under floor heating, large swimming pool, a hydroslide and a floodlit astro-turf tennis court. The Family Trust, which has been granted permanent name suppression, only discovered it was being defrauded when the Inland Revenue Department began investigating why Soffersquos assets far exceeded his income. Bank employee steals more than frac14 million 15 June 2011 Vivianne Tait (also known as Vivian Tait), the 50 year-old deputy manager of the Westport branch of the BNZ was today sentenced for stealing 262,000 from her employer. For over 18 months from May 2008, Tait used her inside information to falsify banking records as well as using her seniority to instruct other staff to deposit money into an account she had opened for herself. When she discovered an external audit of the branch was about to be undertaken she borrowed 130,000 from her Mother and temporarily placed it in the vault to conceal her offending. Tait was sentenced to 12 monthsrsquo home detention, the Judge noting that sending her to jail would result in her losing her current job and curtail her efforts at repaying the stolen money . CFO imprisoned for stealing 5.5 million 27 May 2011 Richard Arthur Watson, the 58 year-old Chief Financial Officer of a family-owned Auckland business has been sentenced to six years imprisonment for stealing 5,495,000 from his employer over a period of ten years. Watson, who worked for The Ross Group for more than 30 years and was paid an annual salary of 300,000 and a yearly bonus of 50,000 mis-used his trusted access to manipulate the companyrsquos internet banking facilities to defraud his employer. On 150 occasions he stole sums ranging from 50,000 to 210,000. The theft was discovered during an audit into the companyrsquos poor performance. Watson gambled much of the money away at a local casino which he visited up to three times a week and where he was treated as a high-roller and allowed to belong to its VIP lounge. Court documents recorded Watson had considerable wins and losses at the casino ndash spending as much as 50 million in a decade. The judge described Watsonrsquos criminal offending as a quotgross, prolonged breach of trust driven by greedrdquo. A 20-minute PVL Integrity Test could have identified Watsonrsquos gambling addiction. Supermarket administrator stole frac14 million for drug habit 5 May 2011 Clare Strachan, a 29 year-old Administration Manger at the New World Supermarket in central New Plymouth was today sentenced to two years and nine months imprisonment after being convicted of 51 charges involving the theft of 282,718 from her employer. Strachan, who had worked for the company for more nine years, and had been promoted to be the ownerrsquos Personal Assistant, stole the money over a four year period by depositing cheques intended for the supermarket into her own bank account, stealing phone cards, gift cards and paying herself extra wages. When her employer paid for her and her partner to go on holiday in the Pacific Islands she stole 10,000 for extra spending money. The enormity of the theft almost led to the supermarket closing. Her lawyer claimed the offending was to pay for a methamphetamine addiction. The Judge made no order for reparation. Maria Anne Kahu, a 41 year-old Office Manager was today sentenced for stealing 1,004,285 from her employer, a Christchurch digital printing company. On 276 occasions between 2004 and 2010, Kahu unlawfully deposited company funds into her personal bank account. The fraud was only discovered after she had resigned in preparation for emigrating to Australia. Kahu said she gambled most of the money away. Maria Kahu was sentenced to three years and nine months imprisonment and ordered to pay reparations of 50,000. Hamilton office worker stole 436,000 14 April 2011 Irene Pou, a 43 year-old Hamilton office worker was today convicted of stealing 436,000 from employer. The name of the company has been suppressed. On 14 occasions over an 18 month period Pou deposited cheques intended for the company, into her own bank account. Pou claimed she had stolen the money to pay her sons drug debts, but the Judge described her claim as quotan illusionquot, devised to get her out of a tight spot. Pou was sentenced to 2frac12 years imprisonment. Ice-cream company employees steal 156,000 28 March 2011 Two long-serving employees of the Rush Monro ice-cream company in Hastings have been sentenced for stealing 156,149 from their employer Aroha Byrne, the companyrsquos 31 year-old Manger, who had worked for the business for over ten years, was sentenced to five monthsrsquo home detention, 150 hours community work, and ordered to pay 77,326.49 reparation. Yvette Newman received the same sentence and was ordered to pay her share of reparation amounting to 78,074.91. For over four years the pair manipulated the companyrsquos computer system to hide the fact they were each stealing cash from their employer. Long-serving employee sentenced for bribery amp corruption 15 March 2011 Malcolm David Mason, a 50 year-old Wellington national property manager employed by the Accident Compensation Corporation for more than 32 years, was today sentenced to 11 months home detention after earlier pleading guilty to three bribery and corruption charges. Mason admitted to accepting a bribe worth 160,000 from a property developer in relation to the construction and leasing of a new ACC branch office. He also accepted a 9000 Singapore holiday in 2008 from a real estate agent in return for helping him secure a long-term lease for another ACC building. Thirdly, Mason admitted corruptly disclosing confidential E-mails naming all government department security officers, to a security company involved in installing security systems so that it could profit from inside information. Mason has agreed to pay back the 160,000. A second man is yet to face trial PVL is the only pre-employment screening company in New Zealand able to test and measure a job applicantrsquos propensity for bribery. At the same time, our test also measures a candidatersquos inclination towards theft, drug abuse and gambling. Protect your business by requesting our Integrity Test for job applicants, or existing employees being considered for promotion. Bank Manager imprisoned for 210,000 theft 10 March 2011 Whangarei ANZ Bank manager Vanessa Evelyn Adams was today sentenced to two years and three months jail for stealing 210,592 from customerrsquos accounts. Thirty-nine year-old Adams worked for the bank for more than 17 years but began stealing after being promoted to branch manager. She stole mostly from the accounts of elderly customers and changed their address details so they never received bank statements that would have alerted them. When customers did query irregularities in their accounts, Adams replaced their money with money stolen from other customersrsquo accounts. Employee chooses prison, rather than repaying employer 64,000 24 February 2011 Nicola Maree Francis, a 45 year-old Accounts manager was sentenced in Palmerston North today to 20 months imprisonment for stealing 63,723 from her employer, Tararua Veterinary Services, in Pahiatua Francis was first employed in February 2008 as a Receptionist and three months later was appointed Accounts manager. However, within eight weeks of her promotion she began defrauding her employer and over the next 11 months stole cash from the company on 179 occasions, forged 21 cheques and altered a further 13 customer cheques so she could deposit them into her own personal bank account. The sentencing Judge offered Francis the chance to repay her employer by selling her home in Pahiatua (which was worth between 165,000 and 173,000), or be prepared for a prison sentence. Francis chose to accept prison, rather than repay the stolen money to her employer. Restaurant manager jailed for 139,000 theft 17 February 2011 Vijay Singh, a 30 year-old manager at the Tauranga Lone Star restaurant was today sentenced to 1 year and nine months imprisonment for stealing 139,112 from his employer. For over two years Singh created fake table numbers and would transfer the cost of customerrsquos meals to that table. He would then delete the cost of the meals so there was no trace in the electronic cash register, keeping the money paid by patrons, for himself. In addition to bearing the loss of almost 140,000, the restaurant owners will also have to pay tax to Inland Revenue on the stolen money. The sentencing Judge noted that Singhrsquos offending had almost crippled the company. Singh had no previous convictions. He blamed his offending on a gambling addiction. A PVL Integrity Test could have identified Singhrsquos addiction before he was employed. Bookkeeper steals 282,000 from charity 11 February 2011 Leanne French the 52 year-old Auckland Manager of the Hearing Association has been convicted of 21 fraud, forgery and false accounting charges involving the theft of 282,000 from her employer. French, who was also the Associationrsquos Bookkeeper and Treasurer, misused her position to forge 143 cheques, which she deposited into her own bank account. The offending occurred between 2004 and 2009. The Judge told French she had put the hearing of a generation of young New Zealanders at risk as many notices warning of quotnoise-induced hearing lossquot had not been placed in schools and workplaces because of a lack of funds. French was sentenced to 12 months home detention, 300 hours community work and ordered to pay reparation of 8000, at 50 a week for five years. Her lawyer claimed the offending was to fund a secret gambling habit. Employers can reduce the risk of employing a person with a propensity for gambling and theft by administering PVLrsquos 20-minute online ldquoIntegrity testrdquo to job applicants. Contact us for a free demonstration. General Manager jailed for 1.4 million theft 27 January 2011 Martyn Tewsley Scott, the 51 year-old General Manager of National Fire amp Security Ltd, a supplier of security equipment, was today sentenced to three years and three months imprisonment for stealing 1.4 million from his employer over a six year period. Scott diverted invoice payments intended for suppliers, to bank accounts he controlled. When the family-owned business first became aware that suppliers were not being paid it was Scott they turned to, asking him to investigate the matter. Medical-supply manager stole 617,350 from two employers 18 January 2011 Amanda Joan Wilkie of Christchurch today pleaded guilty to stealing 617,350 from two employers, both medical supply companies. Over a six year period from July 2004 until July 2010, thirty year-old Wilkie defrauded one employer of 319,500 and another of 297,850 by depositing money she received from clients, into her own personal bank account. Wilkie allegedly defrauded more than this but the prosecutor withdrew another eight charges following her guilty pleas for the more serious offending. Amanda Wilkie has been remanded for sentencing. Survey: New Zealand bribery 10 December 2010 The long-held perception that New Zealand is free of corruption and bribery has been undermined by a survey commissioned by Transparency International. Undertaken by research company Colmar Brunton, 1291 New Zealanders were interviewed with 3.6 per cent of respondents admitting to paying a bribe in the past 12 months. Previous surveys by Transparency International found that New Zealand was perceived as among the least corrupt countries in the world, along with Denmark and Singapore. Bribery levels were higher than Australia (2 per cent) and Britain (1 per cent) but below Singapore (9 per cent). Transparency International New Zealand director Murray Petrie said he was surprised by the result, and would have expected a figure under 1 per cent. However, it was naive to believe New Zealand was free of corruption. quotTo say that were perceived to be less corrupt than elsewhere doesnt mean weve got none. quot Transparency International pointed to recent high-profile arrests by the Serious Fraud Office as a sign of increased corruption. Nick Paterson, SFO fraud and corruption manager, said little was known about the actual extent of bribery in New Zealand. Establishing the extent of corruption was a quotkey focusquot of the SFO, he said. quotInternationally, corruption is widespread, so logic would suggest that if there isnt corruption in New Zealand that it will find its way here eventually. quot PVLrsquos Integrity test is the only test available to employers in New Zealand that will alert you if you are about to hire a job applicant predisposed to bribery. Contact us today for an obligation-free demonstration. Survey: Company fraud doubles in two years 8 November 2010 KPMG today released its ninth biannual Fraud and Misconduct survey. In its survey of 200 companies and organisations throughout New Zealand and Australia, 53 of respondents experienced at least one incident of fraud and the average loss rose from an average NZ1.9 million in 2008, to NZ3.8m this year. The survey showed the most common motive for fraud was pure greed, though gambling or personal financial pressures were also common excuses. Respondents believed that only a third of the total losses were being detected. On average it took 399 days to detect a major fraud and in 61 of the cases no money was ever recovered. A break-down in internal controls allowed staff to get away with money, often by simple methods, such as internet-based electronic funds transfers. Staff may also switch their personal bank account details with those of a supplier to the company, before processing an invoice. A companyrsquos best protection against fraud is not to hire individuals predisposed to committing fraud in the first place. Outsourcing the background screening of job applicants is a proven method of reducing a companyrsquos exposure to employee fraud. You can read KPMGrsquos report on their website heregtgt Bank employee stole from elderly customerrsquos account 1 November 2010 Vicki Lee McCaskie, a 44 year-old old Tauranga Westpac Bank officer was today sentenced after earlier pleading guilty to defrauding her employer of 25,591. She befriended a bank customer but went on to steal 17,591.51 from the elderly widow. When the customer received her bank statement and noticed the discrepancy she contacted McCaskie who tried to convince the woman she had withdrawn the money to buy Bonus Bonds. Knowing this wasnt true the 84 year-old customer contacted bank officials and the Police. McCaskie stole a further 8,000 from the bankrsquos ATM machine. McCaskie submitted numerous references and testimonials to the sentencing Judge and he took these into account when sentencing her to five months home detention and 250 hours community work. PVL Update (4 August 2011): McCaskie appeared in Court again today for sentencing on further employee theft charges. After reading in the newspaper about McCaskiersquos earlier offending (above) another customer checked her account and complained that 41,000 had been taken from it without authority. For this additional offending McCaskie was sentenced to four months home detention, 200 hours of community work and ordered to pay back the money. McCaskie was dismissed from her job at a childcare centre after she was arrested this second time. Bank employee convicted of multiple fraud s 24 September 2010 Twenty-nine year-old Westpac Bank officer Scott Kendall was today sentenced to 12 months home detention, 175 hours community work and ordered to repay 61,236 after having been convicted of using his position to defraud his employer. From December 2005 to December 2007 Kendall stole nearly 100,000 by creating fake accounts and obtaining credit cards under false names. When caught, Kendell tried to blame two work colleagues for some of his frauds. Supermarket Supervisor convicted of stealing 92,000 - business almost closed 13 September 2010 Janette Kemp, a 47 year-old Supervisor at the Hawera New World supermarket has been convicted of stealing 92,680 from her employer. She was sentenced to eight months home detention and ordered to pay full reparations. As a Checkout supervisor, Kemp held an access card that allowed her to authorise the refund of returned goods, as well as the sale of alcohol and tobacco. Kemp would take high-value products off the shelf, scan them multiple times at a checkout as being returned goods and then authorise a refund, keeping the money for herself. The management, already concerned at a drop in profitability, became suspicious when it noticed a significant increase in the number of cartons of cigarettes being returned, a product that is generally never returned for a refund. When arrested, Kemp said she spent all the money gambling. For just 120, a PVL ldquoIntegrity Testrdquo sat by a job applicant on your own premises will assist employers identify if they are at risk of employing someone with a gambling problem, or other counter-productive behaviour like a propensity for theft or drug abuse. Commenting on the theft, the supermarket owners said their 86 staff were victims too, as suspicion fell on all staff and nobody could be trusted, ldquoI donrsquot think people realise how much damage it does, not just to us but the staff too, she was their friend, they trusted herrdquo, said the owner who almost had to close their business because of the theft. This is further evidence of how essential it is for New Zealand employers to have an employment screening programme in place to assess the integrity of their staff. There is the obvious benefit to the employer in only employing honest people, but there is also the increase in morale for employees, knowing that their colleagues have been professionally screened, and can be trusted. Contact us for a free consultation on how you can safeguard your business, and increase the morale of your staff by only employing trustworthy people. Hendrika Margaret Pijper a 54 year-old Dutch national of Christchurch was today sentenced to 12 months imprisonment for stealing 68,000 from her employer. Pijper offered to repay the stolen money at 25 a week. At that rate it will take her more than 50 years to repay the money. In 2003, Pijper, who went by the name Hendrika Margaret Shaskey, was sentenced to five years imprisonment after being convicted of sexually violating a boy from the age of 13 until he was 18 years old. WINZ employee convicted of fraud 21 August 2010 Letitia Lilly Anne Proctor, a 23 year-old Palmerston North Case Manger at Work amp Income (WINZ) has been sentenced to seven months home detention for defrauding her employer of 27,528. Proctor worked at the Government welfare agency from April 2006 to June 2010 and used her inside knowledge and access to pay herself unauthorised welfare benefits, including accommodation supplements and family assistance. As well, she provided false medical information to secure disability payments. She also claimed benefits in the names of five people she knew no longer lived in New Zealand and had the 37 payments made to these clients, redirected to her own bank account. Proctor also altered a birth certificate to create a false identity for a child she said belonged to a fictitious client who had left the country. She subsequently applied for an unsupervised child benefit in her own name for the fictitious child, alleging the child had been abandoned by its parents. She also defrauded South Canterbury Finance by using false documents, including passports, employer letters and bank statements to secure 9761 in loans. Letitia Proctor was ordered to repay the 27,528 she defrauded from WINZ. PVL Update (9 August 2012): Proctor was today sentenced to eights months imprisonment for further fraud committed against WINZ whilst serving Home Detention for her original offending. Proctor lied to WINZ to gain a number of welfare benefits by claiming to have care of a 17 year-old child, and also that her husband had left her. After her Home Detention sentence was finished she began working for TalentPoint, a recruitment company, but simultaneously applied for further welfare payments that she was not entitled to . Car dealership employee stole 1.3 million 16 August 2010 Michelle Campbell, a 42 year-old Business Manager employed by Tauranga motor vehicle dealer Ebbett Tauranga Ltd was today sentenced to four years imprisonment after earlier being convicted of 61 fraud offences against her employer. From September 2006 to February 2010, Campbell deposited 1,315, 807.70 worth of customer cheques into her own bank account, as well as stealing a further 46,685 in cash from her employer. When customers paid for vehicle purchases with a cheque she would tell them to leave the payee details blank so she could imprint the companyrsquos name with a rubber stamp. But instead, Campbell made the cheques out to ldquoCashrdquo. Campbellrsquos 3frac12 year-long offending was not discovered by her employer. Instead, a bank became suspicious when one of its customerrsquos cheques made out to ldquoCashrdquo for 25,000 was deposited into Campbellrsquos account. Volunteers stole from Salvation Army 12 August 2010 Martin Roger Finnerty, age 54, and Ngaire Finnerty, age 46, were today sentenced to 100 hours community work after having been found guilty of stealing more than 1,000 worth of food donated to the Dunedin Salvation Army and intended for distribution to the needy and homeless. The couple had worked as volunteers for more than seven years and every month would use a church van to collect donated food from companies. Discrepancies in the vanrsquos mileage were detected and the couple were put under surveillance by the Police. The Finnertyrsquos were observed unloading boxes at an unknown address, before taking the rest to the food bank. They later returned to the address and took the groceries home In a statement, the Salvation Army said the effect of the theft on the community was immeasurable because it was not known how long it had been happening or how much food had been taken. Charity fraud is becoming increasingly prevalent in New Zealand. Searching (CtrlF) the word ldquocharityrdquo on this webpage with bring up cases where local charities have been defrauded, sometimes up to six-figure sums. It is tempting to overlook the background screening of volunteers, but it is just as important as verifying paid employees. The donating public make no distinction - any fraud inariably leads to a dropping off in support for the charity. Rodney David Mason, the 57 year-old Manager of the Vincentian Recovery Centre Trust, a Christchurch Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation facility, was today sentenced to 3 years and four months imprisonment for stealing 654,756. Between 2005 and 2009, Mason regularly invoiced the Christchurch District Health Board (DHB) for addiction treatment services that were never provided and also forged signatures in order to cash Trust cheques More than 364,000 of the money was gambled away through a TAB betting account from 2006 to 2008, at a time when his salary totalled 130,000. Mason was originally charged with 465 offences but they were subsequently replaced with three representative counts covering all the offending. The fraud was only discovered by a random Ministry of Health audit. As a result of the fraud the Trust was forced to close, and its assets sold to realise 170,000 as part repayment to the DHB. Mason was also ordered to pay reparation of 48,000. Office Manager imprisoned for 300,000 theft ndash history of offending 9 July 2010 Bernadine Warren, a 37 year-old Christchurch office amp accounts Manager was today sentenced to 2frac12 years imprisonment and ordered to pay 90,000 reparation for stealing 298,537 from her employer, Tourplan Holdings. The companyrsquos Director said that Warren quotsystematically fleecedquot the company for three years. Warren began to steal within weeks of being recommended for the position by an employment agency. Some of the money was spent on her own company ldquoDedicated to Beautyrdquo, a Christchurch beauty treatment business. Had the recruitment company bothered to undertake even the most basic of background checks ndash a criminal records check ndash it would have learnt that Warren already had a history of dishonesty. In 1996 she had been convicted of stealing 60,000 from another employer and was given a suspended prison sentence. This failure by the recruitment agency was compounded by the employer having no policy in place for reviewing the integrity of its staff from time to time ndash such checks would also have uncovered Warrenrsquos previous criminal offending. If your company has no policy for reviewing staff honesty then you are exposed to the exact same risk of theft that this Christchurch employer has suffered. Almost all fraud is committed by longer-serving staff (because they have learnt how to circumvent procedures). PVL can quickly implement a staff review policy for you that will immediately reduce your exposure to employee fraud. Contact us now . Office Administrator stole 166,000 for gambling 18 June 2010 Linda Anne Allan, a 60 year-old Officer Administrator who stole 166,000 from her Whangamata employer has been sentenced 7frac12 months home detention and 140 hours community work. From September 2005 to August 2008 Allan fraudulently wrote 56 cheques, totalling 151,168.80 which she deposited into her own bank account. As well, she paid herself a further 15,031 in unauthorised salary. The stolen money often put the building companyrsquos account in overdraft resulting in it incurring 27,189.77 in interest charges and dishonour fees. Allans fraud left the company struggling to pay creditors and it spent a further 35,500 investigating the theft. Allen spent the money on herself and her adult children, and gambled much of it away. Peter Davison, the company owner, said Allan was recommended to him by a former employee and appeared efficient and trustworthy. Mr Davison said it was important for employers to do background checks on potential employees and to keep close tabs on their companys accounts ndash Allans offending was only discovered by chance, when she was absent on sick-leave. Employee stole 2 million from Wellington IT company over 5 years 11 June 2010 Janice Johansson of Wellington was today sentenced to four years and two months imprisonment after earlier being convicted of 64 fraud and money-laundering charges involving the theft of 2,000,256.23 from her employer. Over a five year period, the 53 year-old Finance and Administration manager made 306 fraudulent transactions from her employerrsquos account into personal and business accounts owned by her. She spent much of the money on buying property, including the purchase of the Scorch-O-Rama cafeacute in Scorching Bay. Her offending was only discovered when the company, an IT Consultancy business, noticed a downturn in profit. When confronted in 2008, Johansson told her employer she had cancer and they gave her time to attend to her health issues before urging her to sell assets and organise repayment of the stolen money, but eventually they called police after the General Manager said she came up with quotdiddly-squatquot. Johansson had worked for the company for nine years. In Court, her employer said he had been shocked and saddened by Johansson, saying quotI find the whole thing sad. You dont know what people are capable of. quot Donrsquot become a victim in the way this IT company became. We can assist you in implementing an employment screening and due-diligence review programme that will help protect you from employee fraud. Contact PVL today Lawyer sentenced for 194,000 fraud 7 May 2010 Emma Jane Garnett, a 36 year-old Auckland lawyer was originally sentenced in April 2009 to three years imprisonment after being convicted of eight fraud charges involving the theft of 194,586.27 of clientsrsquo money. Over a period of five years, to April 2007, Garnett, who was a senior lawyer and later a partner in an Auckland law firm (earning a six-figure salary), fraudulently transferred funds from clientsrsquo accounts, to herself. She used the money to pay personal expenses. The fraud was exposed after she left the partnership but Garnett continued her offending working for another Auckland law firm. Emma Garnett went to considerable lengths to avoid responsibility for her crimes. When first charged in August 2007 she succeeded in having her name, occupation and even the charges, publicly suppressed. Her former employer tried, unsuccessfully, to have Garnettrsquos interim name suppression order lifted. When the order was due to lapse in March 2008, Garnett appealed to the High Court to extend name suppression, arguing that the publicity would seriously undermine her health, that of her newborn son, and the health and reputation of her mother, who is a local Government politician. Her appeal was dismissed and Garnett was publicly identified in July 2008, almost a year after being charged. The absence of any remorse was evident by Garnett only sending letters of apology to her victims 18 months after her arrest, and one week before sentencing. Reparation of 194,586 was sought, but Garnett made no realistic offer to repay the money and the Court did not order that she do so. Garnett appealed her sentence in March 2010 but the Crown argued she had taken advantage of her privileged position, committed serious white-collar crime and brought the legal profession into disrepute. Garnett still denied responsibility and had still not paid back any of the money she stole. However, in a decision released today, the Court of Appeal replaced her prison sentence with what it termed an quotextremely lenientquot sentence of 11 months home detention and 30 hours community service. PVL Update (8 July 2011): Garnettrsquos former employer has instituted civil proceedings seeking to recover the money she stole from them, plus a further 90,000 it spent investigating her fraud. Rental car employee jailed for stealing 452,000 28 April 2010 Jacqueline de Berri, a 48 year-old Credit Controller, has been sentenced to 28 months imprisonment for stealing 452,206 from her employer, the Hertz rental car company office at Christchurch Airport. On 12 occasions over a five month period, de Berri transferred all the money to a ldquosolicitorrdquo in Spain, who had earlier sent her an E-mail saying she was in line to receive an unclaimed 21 million inheritance. It was of course a scam, but Jacqueline Louise de Berri, who had worked for Hertz for more than 13 years, decided to steal her employers money, rather than use her own. The sentencing Judge described the offending as quotextremely seriousquot with an element of greed. There is no prospect of de Berri repaying any of the money she stole. Charity Fundraising Manager imprisoned for stealing 590,000 26 March 2010 Lynn Fiebig, the 56 year-old National Fundraising Manager of the IHC was today sentenced to three years imprisonment having earlier been convicted on 72 charges of defrauding her employer and money laundering. The sentencing Judge described the offending as a gross breach of trust that was persistent and clearly premeditated. The IHC (formerly known as the New Zealand Society for the Intellectually Handicapped) is New Zealandrsquos largest provider of support and accommodation for those with intellectual disabilities Fiebig was employed by the IHC in 2003 as a fund raiser but by the time she was promoted to National Fundraising Manager in 2007, she had already been stealing from the IHC for a year. Her delegated authority allowed her to approve the payment of invoices up to the value of 10,000 and on 74 occasions she authorised payments totalling 590,029 to bogus companies she had created, with the money being transferred into bank accounts in her name, and the Ahura Lodge, a five-star luxury resort at Ohakune, National Park, that she and her partner own. The offending continued on for 2frac12 years, until she was finally caught in May 2009. In January 2008, Fiebig was the author of an IHC submission to the Inland Revenue Department seeking an easier way for employees and employers to donate money to charities, using direct credit, through their payroll systems. Fiebig has made no attempt to repay the money she stole. Company owner loses business amp home to employee fraud 26 March 2010 The owners of a Tokoroa company have lost their business and home, and owe 38,000 to Inland Revenue for overdue GST payments after their 62 year-old Office Manager stole 72,230. The manager, described as a ldquoprominentrdquo South Waikato resident at her first Court appearance, defrauded the company over an 18 month period by mis-using her Internet banking access to the companyrsquos accounts. She was charged with 43 fraud-related offences, but failed to appear in Court on 27 April 2009. A Warrant for her arrest was issued and interim name suppression was lifted identifying her as Wendy Anne Fellingham (also known as Wendy Anne McCormack), a practising wedding celebrant who previously operated ldquoTimeless Choicerdquo - a now-closed wedding and party hire service in Tokoroa. Some of the money she stole was paid directly into her own company. Appearing in Court for sentencing today, Fellingham originally offered to repay the money at the rate of 15 a week but the Judge described the amount as quotludicrous and derisoryquot and said unless a larger repayment was agreed to, he would impose a two-year jail sentence. Fellingham increased her reparations offer to 100 per week which the Judge accepted, as well as sentencing her to 12 months home detention so she could earn money from home as a Telemarketer and begin repaying the money she had stolen. This case again demonstrates the need for all employers, no matter the size of their business, to undertake background checks when hiring staff. Had the company sought an assessment of Fellingham from a pre employment screening company, they would have learnt she had a history of dishonesty and had earlier been convicted in 2001 for stealing from a previous employer. Credit Union employee stole 54,000 22 March 2010 Natasha Maree Moana Dewes, a 23 year-old Gisborne Credit Union employee has been convicted of stealing 54,284 from her employer. The offending involved Dewes making 160 fraudulent transactions over a two year period The Prosecutor said an aggravating feature of the offending was the number of transactions that took place and that there was no willingness to repay any of the money stolen. Natasha Dewes was sentenced to six months home detention, 180 hours community service and ordered to pay 5000 reparation. Banker sentenced for 17.7 million fraud 18 March 2010 Stephen Versalko, a 52 year-old Auckland ASB Bank investment banker was today sentenced to six years imprisonment for the countrys largest known employee theft. He must serve a minimum non-parole period of 4 years. Between 2000 and 2009, Versalko made 123 fraudulent transactions which resulted in 30 ASB customers being defrauded of 17,763,110. He spent the money on a 3.2 million home in Remuera, a 1.8 million beach front holiday home at Whangapoua in the Coromandel, 1200 bottles of wine to the value of 300,000, and 4.2 million on two prostitutes. Versalko was only caught because one of his clients after seeing a TV documentary about US billion dollar fraudster Bernie Madoff noticed similarities between the way in which Madoff treated his clients, and the way in which she had been treated by Versalko. Versalko had promised her higher than normal interest rates, assured her that no taxes or fees were payable, and she had never had contact with any other ASB employee. She decided to contact the ASB to confirm that her investment of 3 million was secure. The bank told her it had no record of her investment at all. Versalkorsquos fraud made a major contribution to the ASBrsquos reported 10 million loss in the second half of last year (its first loss in over two decades) as it was required to reimburse 16.5 million to the defrauded clients. Only 4 million was recovered from Versalko. We can only assume that a major bank would have had in place sophisticated accounting practices and audit trails. In this case they were insufficient probably because Versalko committed his crimes by using the ASBrsquos name but conducting his business outside the bankrsquos framework. This case demonstrates, once again, how essential it is for New Zealand employers to have policies in place to verify and regularly review the honesty and trustworthiness of its staff. A regular component of PVLrsquos services is the undertaking of ldquodue diligencerdquo reviews of the integrity of employees. Contact us if you would like us to develop and implement a policy for your business. Defiant 30-year employee defrauds pharmaceutical company of frac12 million 8 March 2010 Selwyn Love, the Palmerston North Managing Director of the New Zealand division of German-owned pharmaceutical company Merck NZ Ltd, has been sentenced to four years imprisonment for defrauding his employer of 509,975. Love had worked for Merck for over 30 years and was appointed its Managing Director in 1994. His salary was paid by the companyrsquos external accountants but from 2000 onwards Love submitted documents to the accountant that overstated the remuneration the Board in Germany had approved for payment to him. His approved salary was 7,000 per month but the papers he forward to the accountant stated his salary was 12,000 per month. Love was ordered to pay 60,000 reparation within three years, however, during sentencing he said he could not make reparation as he had no assets ndash he claimed they were all jointly owned with his wife or by a family trust and he was not prepared to ask the trustees to dispose of its assets to pay reparation. Emma Joanne ODowda, a 40 year-old Dunedin National Bank consultant (Moray Place branch) was today sentenced to 2frac12 years imprisonment for stealing 376,000 from her employer. On 11 occasions, ODowda fraudulently drew up a total of 2 million in loans in the names of genuine unsuspecting business customers of the bank. She then paid the original loans back by approving further new loans, but in the process kept 376,000 for herself She sometimes chose customers she knew would not check their accounts, but in one instance she disabled a customers internet banking and had statements from their account redirected to her workplace, to prevent the customer finding out. The offending occurred over a three year period and was only discovered by chance, when a bank employee noticed the lending discrepancies. The Judge noted the bulk of the money had been spent on luxury items. None of the stolen money was recovered. Staff laid off whilst colleague was stealing 460,000 from employer 12 February 2010 Toni Anne Whatarau has been sentenced to three years imprisonment for stealing 460,862.71 from her employer between April 2007 and October 2009. Forty-six year-old Whatarau was employed to manage the office accounts but in the process made 278 transactions from the companys bank account to her own account. To disguise her offending she inserted a creditors name or labelled the transfers as being tax payments to Inland Revenue. Her offending was only discovered when the owner became aware of the companyrsquos poor cash flow and had to lay off staff and reduce the hours of others, to keep the business afloat. The owner originally thought the companyrsquos financial problems were due to the economic recession. When discovered, Whatarau admitted to stealing the money, claiming she had a gambling addiction and had lost the money on pokie machine throughout the Hawkes Bay region. Whatarau has only offered to repay 3,000 of the money she stole. The name of her employer was suppressed to reduce its embarrassment. Companies can minimise the risk of hiring employees with gambling problems by having their job applicants sit PVLrsquos ldquoIntegrity Testrdquo. This 20-minute test will accurately identify if you are about to hire a problem gambler. Contact us for a demonstration. Insurance Manager jailed for 450,000 fraud 18 December 2009 Dion Nukunuku, a 39 year-old Auckland-based Tower Insurance Claims Manager has been sentenced to three years imprisonment for defrauding his employer of 449,555. During the periods 2002 to 2004, and 2007 to 2009, Nukunuku filed 46 false insurance claims using the names of 16 genuine clients, as well as his own name. He approved the bogus claims and wrote company cheques out to himself. The offending was only discovered after Nukunuku left the company. Nukunuku is a three-time world champion softball player in 1996, 2000 and 2004, and a 2007 softball personality of the year. Tower Insurance sought reparation, but Nukunukursquos lawyer said his client was addicted to horse race betting, and all the money had been gambled away. Employee sentenced for stealing 134,000 17 December 2009 Vanessa Joan Orr, a 33 year-old Christchurch transport company employee was today sentenced for stealing 134,180 from her employer over a three year period. The offending involved 95 fraudulent transactions. Orr offered to repay the money at 70 per week but that would have taken 37 years and her employer would have been 92 years old before reparation was completed. The Judge described the offer as an insult and instead ordered Orr to pay 90,000 from the proceeds of a house sale, and to repay the remaining 44,680 at the rate of 100 a week, with that sum to be reviewed in three months to establish if larger payments could be made. He further ordered her to serve seven months home detention. Survey: New Zealand ranked 8th out of 54 countries for company fraud 20 November 2009 Price Waterhouse Coopers has released its fifth biennial Economic Crime Report surveying more than 3,000 organisations in 54 countries. Eighty-five organisations in New Zealand took part. The results disclosed New Zealand had the eighth highest reported level of fraud, with 42 of the NZ respondents saying that they suffered from some form of economic crime in the last 12 months. The global average was 30. The average cost of fraud in New Zealand was 491,506 and the most common collateral damage arising from the fraud was the effect on employee morale and damage to the companyrsquos brand or reputation. Since their last New Zealand survey in 2007, PWC has detected a significant increase in fraud committed by middle and senior management as such individuals are more able to override controls within an organisation. A third of all the frauds were only detected by chance. Irrespective of the internal audit and detection systems that a company might have in place to prevent employee fraud, the most reliable and cost effective solution is to reduce to a minimum the risk of employing an untrustworthy person in the first place. This is best accomplished by engaging a professional employment screening company to verify the honesty and veracity of your future employees. Manager with unchecked false employment history jailed for 5.7 million fraud 12 November 2009 Scott Alwyn Mackenzie (also known as Scot Mckenzie), a 29 year-old Auckland Property Manager, has been sentenced to three years and eight month imprisonment after earlier being convicted of ten charges of defrauding his employer, and a bank. Mackenzie commenced working for the Omara Property Group in 2006 after submitting a CV that included a false employment history. Over the next two years Mackenzie fraudulently created 129 bogus invoices worth 1.6 million that his employer and associated companies unwittingly paid to three companies controlled by MackenzieMckenzie. Mackenzie was also convicted of a 3.5 million mortgage fraud against a bank. He purchased six properties with loans from the bank by creating false documents that exaggerated his income. He was also convicted of submitting false GST returns that resulted in Inland Revenue paying him 510,000. This case again demonstrates the need for New Zealand companies to recognise the importance of practicing due diligence when hiring staff. Had his employer engaged the services of a pre employment screening company, Mackenziersquos false work history, his use of an alias and the obvious conflict of interest in his owing three property construction businesses of his own, might have alerted the company to his unsuitability and so have avoided it being defrauded of 1.6 million. School principal jailed for fraud and theft from school 22 October 2009 Barry Andrew Bloomfield, the 56 year-old principal of Huntly West School was today sentenced to 12 months imprisonment after earlier being convicted of using a document for pecuniary advantage. Bloomfield falsely claimed to have employed a former colleague as a relieving teacher for the school, but the teacher never taught at the school and was not even living in New Zealand at the time. Bloomfield operated a bank account in the name of his former colleague and the Ministry of Education subsequently paid a total of 17,416 in salary into the account. Bloomfield was also convicted on charges of theft. He sold school property through an on-line auction site, claimed there were no interested buyers and had disposed of the property for 80. In fact, Bloomfield sold the property for 4600 and kept the money for himself. PVL Update (17 September 2010): Following his sentencing last year, Bloomfield sucessfully applied for home detention instead of serving his sentence in prison. He has also since been censured and deregistered by the Teachers Disciplinary Tribunal for his offending. General Manager jailed for 250,000 fraud 2 October 2009 Kenneth James Green, the 51 year-old former General Manager of corporate infrastructure at Northpower (a Northland-based power company) was today sentenced to 2frac12 years imprisonment for defrauding his employer of 250,000 Green was employed by Northpower in January 2007 where his duties included ldquorisk prevention and minimisationrdquo for the company. But instead of minimising the companyrsquos risks he set about defrauding it, just three weeks after he began his 190,000 per annum job. He arranged for a company called Implied Technologies Ltd (ITL) to be added to Northpowerrsquos list of suppliers and during the next 14 months ITL invoiced Northpower on 32 different occasions for a total of 259,324. In fact, ITLrsquos account belonged to Magix Consulting Ltd, a company wholly-owned by Green. The money paid by Northpower to ITL was transferred by Green directly into his own personal bank account. Ken Green was dismissed in May 2008 and the next day applied to the Accident Compensation Corporation for weekly compensation, saying he had injured his back. His claim was approved and he began receiving weekly payments of 1,172 from ACC. The following month Green registered a new company and secured a six-month contract as an IT consultant without disclosing this to ACC. He continued to claim ACC payments, providing seven medical certificates which deemed him quotfully unfit for workquot between May and October 2008. By the time ACC became aware of discrepancies in his claim Green had received 20,351 in payments. On 14 September Green was stopped at Auckland International Airport and subsequently arrested. Within two weeks he had applied for legal aid stating he had no current income with which to defend himself against the fraud charges. Bank Manager jailed for 20 year fraud 24 September 2009 Heather Scott, a 54 year-old Invercargill and Alexandra Westpac Bank Manager was today sentenced to three years imprisonment after earlier being convicted of 33 representative charges of defrauding her employer of 463,498. Scott began her offending in 1989 when without their knowledge, she opened nine accounts in the names of friends, relatives, and even her husband. Utilising internal bank procedures that allowed for temporary overdrafts on uncleared funds within customersrsquo accounts, Scott repeatedly forged signatures, raised loans and transferred money between the accounts over two decades to conceal her forgery and stealing. Almost all the money was spent on gambling. Manager resigns following audit 14 September 2009 Lorraine Coulston, manager of the Hutt Valley Youth Health Trust (also known as Vibe), has resigned following an audit of the Trustrsquos accounts that disclosed more than 97,000 of its funds had been spent on questionable expenses. In a story today, the Wellington ldquoDominon-Postrdquo newspaper reported that Coulston spent more than 20,000 of the Trustsrsquo money to fund lavish shopping sprees whilst the Trust struggled to pay its staffrsquos salaries on time. After initially claiming she had bought clothes for clients to wear to job interviews, Coulston admitted misappropriating 20,870.86 through a corporate credit card, but the auditors discovered thousands more dollars unaccounted for. Large sums were also transferred electronically to bank accounts belonging to Coulston. Another employee, unnamed, also resigned when a similar pattern of doubtful spending, and payments to her personal bank account, was uncovered. The women also paid their children 70 an hour to clean the Trustrsquos office. More than 7,000 of the Trusts money was paid to the children for cleaning services. Vibe is a tax-payer funded organisation that last year received more than 1.4 million in Government funding. It often ran short of cash and was repeatedly penalised by Inland Revenue for filing late returns. Senior staff were sometimes paid late. Twice in January 2008, Coulston quotloanedquot 30,000 of her own money to cover the wages bill. At the same time, thousands of dollars were spent on staff meetings in cafes, gym memberships, leaving gifts and parties. This case raises issues about the competence of such Boards (one Board member is a 19 year-old student) to adequately maintain oversight and control of senior staff. The auditors said poor controls and the culture provided ample opportunity for fraud to be committed and the opportunities were seized upon. The Board was also criticised for taking months to inform funders of the fraud. Trusted Credit Union manager jailed for 7frac12 year fraud 10 August 2009 Anthony Raymond Wilbraham, the 44 year-old manager of a local credit union branch in Mt. Maunganui was today sentenced to three years imprisonment. Wilbraham pleaded guilty to 44 fraud and dishonesty charges involving the theft of more than 280,000 from his employer. The offending which first began in February 2001, involved Wilbraham stealing the identities of existing customers, creating loan accounts in their names and then withdrawing the money for his own use. The Credit Unionrsquos CEO described Wilbrahamrsquos actions as being ldquorobbed by a brotherrdquo. Wilbraham was adjudged bankrupt in March 2009. There is no possibility of the stolen money being repaid to the Credit Union. Property Manager with unchecked false employment history convicted of 5.7 million fraud 31 July 2009 Scott Alwyn Mackenzie (also known as Scot Mckenzie), a 29 year-old Auckland Property Manager, has been convicted of 10 charges of defrauding his employer, and a bank. Mackenzie commenced working for the Omara Property Group in 2006 after submitting a CV that included a false employment history. Over the next two years Mackenzie fraudulently created 129 bogus invoices worth 1.6 million that his employer, and associated companies, unwittingly paid to three companies controlled by ScottScotMackenzieMckenzie. Mackenzie was also convicted of a 3.5 million mortgage fraud against a bank. He purchased eight properties with loans from a major trading bank by creating false documents that exaggerated his income. He was also convicted of submitting false GST returns that resulted in Inland Revenue paying him a refund of 510,000. This case again demonstrates the need for New Zealand companies to recognise the importance of practicing due diligence when hiring staff. Had his employer engaged the services of a pre employment screening company, Mackenziersquos false work history, use of an alias, and the conflict of interest inherent in his ownership of three property construction businesses, would have alerted the company to his unsuitability and avoided it being defrauded of 1.6 million. Mackenzie has been remanded in custody for sentencing on 5 November 2009. Nine bus drivers dismissed for stealing 20,000 of fares 8 July 2009 Nine Wellington bus drivers have been dismissed for allegedly stealing at least 20,000 in bus fares over an eight week period. Go Wellington, the company that operates the bus service has announced it will not lay criminal charges if the money is paid back Previously, more than 500,000 had gone missing over a three year period, until a new fare collection system was introduced. And before that, in 1999, three drivers were convicted of stealing almost 110,000 over four years. Long-serving Students Association manager jailed for fraud 19 June 2009 Helen Frances Lenihan, the 55 year-old manager of the Christchurch Polytechnic Students Association has been sentenced to 22 months imprisonment for defrauding the Association of 175,000. The offending spanned a period of five years and involved Lenihan paying herself more than her salary allowed, using the Associations account to pay her rent, and writing cheques out to herself. Lenihan repaid 50,000 but there is no prospect of the outstanding 125,000 being recovered. Helen Lenihan had worked for the Association for more than 18 years. Manager imprisoned for embezzling from Surf Life saving organisation 29 May 2009 Alison Douglas, the 65 year-old District Manager of Surf Life Saving Taranaki, has been sentenced to 3frac12 years imprisonment after earlier being found guilty of 41 forgery, theft and embezzlement charges totalling 205,548. Douglas was only caught when the Inland Revenue Department contacted the organisationrsquos Chairman seeking 108,000 in unpaid income tax payments that had been owing for several years. The subsequent investigation revealed that Douglas, who had sole responsibility for the organisations funds, overpaid herself 198,764 during the ten-year period 1998-2008. She also spent a further 6,783 in unauthorised domestic and international travel for herself, her son and his partner. Douglas managed to conceal her decade-long offending by repeatedly producing false audit reports that had supposedly been prepared by an Accountant, but which in truth she created with forged letterheads and signatures. The extent of her criminal activity almost resulted in the organisation, which provides life guards for Taranaki beaches, becoming insolvent. Only 12 months earlier Douglas had been conferred life membership of the organisation. Had the organisation engaged a pre employment screening provider before appointing her, it would have learnt that Douglas had previous convictions for theft as a servant, cheque forgery, and property theft. There is no likelihood of Douglas repaying the money she stole from the Surf Life saving organisation. Employee jailed for stealing 155,000 from childrens charity 20 May 2009 Michelle Margaret Hyndman, the 38 year-old Treasurer of the Tauranga branch of the Plunket Society was today sentenced to 2frac12 years imprisonment. Hyndman had earlier pleaded guilty to 421 fraud charges involving the theft of 155,367 from the 100 year-old not-for-profit society which sees over 90 of newborn babies in New Zealand each year. Hyndman managed the Tauranga branchrsquos accounts, but over a four year period she also fraudulently wrote out cheques to herself, often in her maiden name and forged another persons signature before depositing the cheques into her own bank account. None of the money has been recovered. Michelle Hyndman was further ordered to pay 25,000 reparations when released from prison, at the rate of 50 per week. Manager stole 138,000 from countryrsquos largest childcare organisation 15 May 2009 Katrina Maree Scopas, Operations Manager for Kidicorp, has been convicted of 10 fraud charges involving the theft of 138,300 from the company. Kidicorp is the largest childcare provider in New Zealand, with almost 100 childcare facilities throughout the country, and responsible for the care of 9,000 children. Scopas began stealing from the company almost immediately after she was appointed its Operations Manager in November 2007 and her offending continued for a year, before by chance, another employee became suspicious of her behaviour. As the time of her appointment in November 2007, the CEO of the company released a press statement saying ldquoWe are lucky to be able to attract exceptionally capable people from the business world to help make us more professional so we can focus on providing excellent education and care in all our centres. rdquo Security Manager jailed for 170,000 burglary from employer 1 May 2009 Stanley William Tunnicliffe, the 47 year-old manager of Armourguardrsquos Blenheim branch was today sentenced to 3frac12 years imprisonment for stealing 170,000 from his employerrsquos premises by cutting a hole in the wall of the building in the early hours of 14 January. The Police recovered some of the money, but 37,000 remains outstanding. Tunnicliffe, who was employed by Armourguard Security three years ago, offered 2,000 in reparation, which the Judge ordered him to pay. Stanley Tunnicliffe already had two convictions for dishonesty offences from the late 1980rsquos but his criminal history did not prevent him from being approved for a Security Guardrsquos licence because the Criminal Records ( Clean Slate ) Act allowed him to conceal these convictions as they did not involve a custodial sentence, and were more than seven years old when Armouguard employed him. Security guard stole 52,000 from employer 1 April 2009 Peter Emery-Jones, a 51 year-old Nelson security guard has been sentenced to 18 months prison after being convicted of two charges of stealing 52,000 from his employer, Cochise Security. The company replenished ATMs at banks in Nelson and Emery-Jones used his inside knowledge of the procedures to steal the money. He had been an employee of the company for nine years. Emery-Jones was also ordered to immediately pay 10,000 reparation but when that was not forthcoming the Judge ordered that his Harley-Davidson motorcycle be seized. Emery-Jones had earlier sought to conceal ownership of the bike by transferring it into someone elses name, but a Warrant was nonetheless issued and the bike seized. The 42,000 balance of the stolen money is to be paid back at 50 a week once Emery-Jones is released from prison. CEO defrauds volunteer organisation 20 March 2009 Joan Dorothy Roberts, the 71 year-old Auckland Chief Executive Officer of the Aotearoa Mature Employment Service (AMES) has been convicted of fraud and theft charges totalling 1.09 million. AMES is a voluntary organisation that assists older workers retrain and find re-employment. Joan Roberts offending, which occurred over a five year period, included stealing up to 250,000 from AMES using her employerrsquos cheque account to facilitate the issuing of a bank cheque for 58,000 and obtaining by deception, loans totalling 782,000 from three finance institutions. Roberts used the money, to buy a house and purchase a hardware store on Waiheke Island, Auckland. The Prosecutor did not seek a jail term even though he said the fraud was serious enough to justify one. There had been a full and final settlement paid by Roberts, who had no previous convictions and was in poor health. In sentencing Roberts to 10 months home detention, the Judge described her use of AMES money to buy the house as pure greed and as a consequence AMES almost became insolvent. AMES management were quoted as saying they were in complete disbelief at the offending and that Roberts had been ldquolike one of the family. quot CIO sentenced for stealing 16.9 million 11 March 2009 Michael Andrew Swann was today sentenced to 9frac12 years imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 4frac12 years. The 47 year-old former Chief Information Officer was earlier found guilty of defrauding his employer of 16.9 million. It is the largest known employee fraud of taxpayers money ever committed in New Zealand. In 2006, Michael Swann was sacked by the Otago Health Board for ldquogross mismanagementrdquo. As CIO, he had been invoicing two companies (Harford Sonntag and Associates, and later, Sonnford Solutions), owned by his associate Kerry Gray Harford (a 48 year-old Queenstown property surveyor with no IT experience), for computer maintenance and software licence agreements. Although 198 invoices were created and these services were never provided, the two companies received payments from the Health Board totalling 16,902,145. In fact the Health Board was already receiving these services under existing agreements with IBM. Harford retained 10 of the money and forwarded the remaining 15.2 million to Computer South Ltd, a company controlled by Swann. He was a signatory to the companys bank account, and was in full control of its funds. Harford was also sentenced today, receiving a 4frac14 year prison term. (PVL Comment 26 April 2010: Harford only served 58 weeks in prison ndash he was released three days after becoming eligible for parole). The Health Board has asset-protection orders against property owned by Swann including, 30 vehicles, mostly luxury cars such as Lamborghinirsquos and Porsches several boats, including the 50-metre launch ldquoTownsend Cromwellrdquo property in Wanaka including a substantial home a residence in Dunedin (with a Government valuation of 1.1 million) and a property in Central Otago. Swannrsquos salary whilst working for the Health Board had been 145,000 a year, but he was receiving an average 43,000 a week from his frauds. The offending spanned more than six years. An aggravating feature of this case was the Health Boardrsquos failure to ensure that Swann was a fit and proper person to have control of such large sums of public money, and its failure to monitor his delegated authorities over such a long period of time. When Swann was being considered for appointment, the Board should have been aware that he was a former bankrupt. The Board has admitted in a briefing to the new Minister of Health that no verification of Swannrsquos background was undertaken before he was employed. Had it engaged a professional pre-employment screening company, they certainly would have been made aware of his circumstances. Having taken that precaution, the Board may have avoided the stigma of becoming the victim of the largest employee fraud of taxpayers money reported in this country. The Board has also paid 1.3 million investigating and prosecuting the case - increasing the total cost to 18.2 million. The 1.3m comprised 890,000 in legal fees and 420,000 in other costs such as the recovery, storage, security and valuation of Swann and Harfordrsquos assets, including the cost of returning a yacht from Fiji. PVL Update (11 February 2010) . Last October, a life-long friend of Swannrsquos, 48 year-old Robin Sew Hoy pleaded guilty to corruption under the Secret Commissions Act and was later sentenced to 10 months home detention and ordered to repay 325,000 to the Otago Health Board. During the period 2000-2008, Sew Hoy paid Swann ldquokick-backsrdquo totalling 757,685 in return for ensuring his company, Innovative Systems Ltd, was awarded a 4.7 million contract for providing the Health Board with IT help desk support. The arrangement was that for every hour charged out at 95, Swann would receive 25. At the time most hospital boards were paying 56 an hour for outside IT support. When the corrupt payments were discovered the Health Board terminated the contract and made an immediate saving of about 500,000 a year by employing the same three people who had been providing the service on behalf of Sew Hoy. Swann denied accepting inducements from Sew Hoy and had been due to stand trial in March 2010, but on 17 December 2009 following Sew Hoyrsquos sentencing, he changed his plea to guilty. Swann was today sentenced to 20 months prison, to be served concurrently with his current sentence. Swanns lawyer also said there was no more than 5 million in assets available to repay the 17 million he had stolen. PVL was asked by the rdquoNational Business Reviewrdquo to comment on the Swann fraud case. Read NBR correspondent Mark Peartrsquos article heregtgt Bank manager jailed for frac12 million fraud 10 March 2009 Shona Bullen, a 47 year-old Bank Manager at the Tauranga National Bank has been sentenced to 2frac12 years imprisonment for defrauding her employer of 515,000. On eight occasions during the 4frac12 years she was employed by the National Bank, Bullen fraudulently approved and created 595,000 worth of mortgages against her Fatherrsquos account, later spending 515,000 of it on herself and her family. Bank policy prohibited staff from performing any transactions on the accounts of family members. The largest single loan she approved was 175,000 in May 2007. Three months later the bank promoted her to a regional managerrsquos position, responsible for much of the central North Island. PVL update (28 August 2009): Bullen was convicted of further fraud offences today, having pled guilty to deceptively obtaining credit to the total value of 279,515 from another bank, deceptively obtaining ownership of a Whakatane property and forging a property transfer document. Increase in employee fraud predicted during 2009 10 February 2009 KPMGs biannual fraud survey released today has revealed that during the period 2006-08 New Zealand company respondents reported fraud losses amounting to 21.5 million (Court reporting last year totalled 71 million). Fifteen percent of employees involved in fraudulent conduct had a history of dishonesty with previous employers. On average, each of the 70 companies participating in the survey lost 620,000, which many smaller businesses would struggle to absorb. KPMGs report noted ldquothis experience reinforced the value of ensuring pre-employment screening, a relatively inexpensive fraud prevention procedure, as a standard component of the hiring processrdquo. Many of the frauds involved false invoicing, theft of cash and consumables, and false loans. Typically the money had already been spent before the fraud was discovered and just two per cent of it was ever recovered. KPMG noted that when jobs were at risk or staff came under financial pressure to meet personal bills, as is being predicted with the current recession, that it often signalled an increase in staff fraud. You can read KPMGrsquos report on their website heregtgt Accounts manager stole 41,000 in ten weeks 9 February 2009 Krystie McGowan, a 20 year-old accounts manager for a Tauranga Valuation company was convicted today of stealing 41,506.95 from her employer. In the space of ten weeks she made 57 unlawful transfers from her employerrsquos bank account into her own. McGowan was sentenced to five months home detention and ordered to make full reparation - 5,000 immediately, 7,000 from the sale of her car, and the balance at the rate of 30 per week. Bank teller stole from dying customers 19 November 2008 Twenty-four year-old Bank teller, Shelley Anne Williamson has been convicted of stealing 135,000 from the Wanaka branch of the Bank of New Zealand. Over a 2frac12 year period Williamson stole 60,000 from inactive bank accounts belonging to customers known by the staff to be dying, or believed to be already dead. She also accessed an in-house foreign currency account on more than 140 occasions, stealing a total of 73,883. In 2006, Williamson had been voted the BNZrsquos Australasian Teller of the Year. Shelley Williamson was sentenced to nine months home detention and ordered to repay 135,858 to the Bank, and also 21,766 in reparations to a couple whose car was damaged when she intentionally drove head-on into it at speed after being confronted by the Bank Manager about the thefts. Lecturer convicted of 330,000 patent fraud 18 November 2008 Martin Alexander Hall, formerly a lecturer at Auckland Unitecrsquos Applied Technology Institute, has been convicted of 23 charges of fraud and sentenced to 10 months home detention. While employed by the Institute, Hall transferred three patents, owned by his employer and worth 300,000, to a company controlled by himself. Applied Science Research Foundation Ltd, without Unitecrsquos knowledge or consent. The Patent Attorney who conducted the transaction thought it was acting on behalf of Unitec and Hall fraudulently authorised Unitecrsquos Finance department to pay their 30,000 account. Martin Hall also approved a payment of 9,000 by Unitec, for goods and services that were expenses incurred by his company. WINZ employee convicted of fraud 29 October 2008 Ravichandiren Nara of Christchurch was convicted of six charges of receiving a social welfare benefit whilst simultaneously being an employee of the department. He was sentenced to 200 hours Community Work and ordered to repay 1220. It also emerged that whilst working for Work and Income New Zealand as a Case Manager and unlawfully claiming a welfare benefit, he also took on work as a nurse without disclosing it to his employer. He is now facing Nursing Council charges as a consequence of his court appearance. Earlier, in 2002, the Nursing Council found a person named Ravichandiren Nara guilty of inappropriate and indecent conduct towards a vulnerable mental health patient. He was struck off the Nursing Register and ordered to pay more than 13,000 towards the cost of the hearing. Manager jailed for defrauding employer of 609,000 16 October 2008 A 37 year-old Manager was convicted of defrauding Auckland University of 609,502.92 over a 28-month period by submitting phoney invoices in the name of legitimate companies. Katherine Ann Henry then deposited the money into her bank account, and that of an accomplice. The fraud was only discovered when the financial performance of the department Henry worked in came under scrutiny because it had exceeded its budget. None of the money was recovered with a large amount of it having been spent on gambling. Katherine Henry was sentenced to 2frac12 years imprisonment. CEO jailed for 4 million fraud 3 October 2008 Blair John Fitzsimons, a 40 year-old former Managing Director of Napier company Pioneer Insurance has been convicted of defrauding his employer of 3 million over an 11 month period. The scale of the theft resulted in the company almost going bankrupt. He also took out a 586,000 loan with a finance company, in his employerrsquos name, and deceived a local bank into allowing him to withdraw 500,000, which he did not have. The total fraud amounted to 4,086,000. Blair Fitzsimons used the money to fund his own business, Xpress Vehicle Rentals, which is now in liquidation owing approximately 4.8 million to creditors. He was sentenced to 4frac12 years imprisonment and ordered to pay 250,000 in reparation. PVL update (22 January 2009): Two of Pioneerrsquos original shareholders have failed to stop a bank from selling their home under mortgagee sale. They had borrowed against the house to raise the capital needed to set up the company, but now had to pay for Fitzsimons thefts. The shareholders claimed in the High Court that their predicament was due to the bankrsquos failure to protect their money from fraud but the Judge ruled that there was ldquono credible basis for the injunctionquot. Office worker begins stealing within six weeks of joining company 1 October 2008 Julia Catherine Davis, a 40 year-old Hamilton office administrator has been convicted of stealing 277,000 from her employer. She used the money to meet personal expenses for herself and her family and disguised payments to third parties for household items. Additionally, she overpaid herself 14,460. The audit of the companys affairs which followed Davisrsquo detection cost the company over 30,000. Davis was sentenced to four years imprisonment, subsequently upheld by the Court of Appeal when it dismissed Davis submission that the sentence was manifestly excessive and she should have been sentenced to home detention. Appeal Court Judge Justice Hugh Williams said it was serious offending She set up moderately sophisticated systems and, over five years, stole well over a quarter of a million dollars which she spent on herself and her family. Twenty-two year old Larissa McMillan of Hanmar Springs has been convicted of stealing an estimated 60,000 from her employer over an 11 month period. She was sentenced to eight months imprisonment with leave granted to apply for home detention. There is no possibility of McMillan repaying the money. Her lawyer said she spent much of it on alcohol and party pills. Barry Harvey Smith, a 66 year-old Christchurch man who had worked for the same company for more than 22 years was sentenced to 2 years and one monthrsquos imprisonment after pleading guilty to stealing 684,278 from his former employer over a 15 year period. The offending of Barry Smith was only discovered after he had retired from the company earlier this year. The company was reportedly shocked to discover the theft, and that it had been committed by such a long serving trusted employee. Former academic convicted of forgery 18 June 2008 Dr David Maurice Guy, a former Director of External Relations at Waikato University, has been convicted of forgery. The 63 year-old had worked at the university for 27 years until being dismissed in 2000 when it was discovered that a year earlier he had created a phoney invoice requesting the university pay 22,500 to a company known as CFS Services that had supposedly undertaken work for the university. Guy had convinced the Finance Department to give him the cheque, which he said he would pass to the company, but he then deposited the money into his own bank account. When the university discovered the fraud, Guy repaid the money and was dismissed from his position. A subsequent audit uncovered further fraud, notably the falsification of overseas travel claims amounting to more than 5,000. The university laid a complaint with the Police later in 2000 but by that time Guy had left the country and obtained a position at the University of Bath, England. Earlier this week David Guy re-entered New Zealand for a brief visit and was arrested. He pleaded guilty to three charges of forgery and was fined 5,000 and ordered to repay the University 5,322.85 in reparations. Guy intends returning to his job in England. One employee fraud contributes to companyrsquos profit falling 78 22 April 2008 Six months ago, Turners Auctions reported a drop in half-year profit after being hit by fraud and a harsh second-hand car market. Revenue for the six months to June 2007 increased 4 per cent, but net profit fell 78 per cent to 524,000. The result included a 1.2 million provision for an alleged fraud committed by a former employee between 1999 and 2006, costing the company 2.8 million in total. At the time, Turners CEO said the company was focused on remedying its internal control systems and investigating avenues to recover the stolen money. This fraud had its sequel today in Auckland when the Companyrsquos Accountant, Christopher Sue, was sentenced to 4frac12 years imprisonment after pleading guilty to three fraud charges. Sue had worked for Turners in various financial roles for a period of eight years until he was appointed acting Finance Manager in May 2005, whilst the incumbent took maternity leave. When the woman returned from leave the following year she discovered discrepancies in the companyrsquos accounts and following an investigation that involved the Serious Fraud Office it was revealed that Sue had performed fraudulent accounting practices that had allowed him to steal 2.8 million from the company during the period 1999-2006, as well as receiving secret payments totalling more than 121,000 from a Singaporean company that sold second-hand vehicles to Turners. Results of Not-for-profit fraud survey published 5 February 2008 Chartered Accountants BDO Kendalls, has published the results of its survey into fraud amongst ldquonot-for-profitrdquo organisation in New Zealand and Australia. Some 384 respondents reported a total of 186 individual frauds. One in five organisations said they had not reported the fraud to police for fear of damage to the organisationrsquos reputation and loss of funds from bad publicity, or because the amount involved was too small. The average sum in such frauds was 45,000. Trust worker convicted of fraud 20 December 2007 Martin Van der Reit was sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment after being convicted of 16 charges of fraud and using a document to pervert the course of justice. Van der Reit had been employed by the Auckland Pride Centre in 2003 as a part-time coordinator, but the following year the Centre discovered it was close to financial collapse and it subsequently accused Van der Reit of defrauding it of 35,000. The centre was forced to close and in a victim impact statement its management said it had suffered considerably from the closure, and that they themselves had suffered ridicule in media reports about the case, had their credibility destroyed, and had even suffered verbal and physical abuse over the matter. Security guard stole 42,000 14 December 2007 A Rotorua woman, responsible for filling ATMrsquos with cash, has been convicted of stealing money from them. During a four month period, 36 year-old Ariai Mihaka, who was employed by ADT Security, stole a total of 42,880 from inside the back of the security vehicle, unbeknown to her colleague who was driving the van. Mihaka was sentenced to nine months home detention and 200 hours community work. Director ordered to repay 44,000 2 November 2007 Taumarunui Company Director Garry Peter Crossman, aged 49, who pleaded not guilty to four charges of dishonesty, was convicted and ordered to repay almost 44,000 after submitting false invoices to a society that existed to fund community projects. Contractor defrauded ACC of 12,500 19 October 2007 Christchurch woman, Lois Mihi Vallance pleaded guilty to 37 charges of fraud by deception. Vallance, who had no health qualifications, established a company in 2003 to secure a contract to provide Maori-focussed rehabilitation services for the Accident Compensation Corporation. However, officials became concerned at the inarticulate nature of some of the reports her company submitted that allegedly had been written by registered health professionals, such as nurses, physiotherapists and speech therapists. In consequence Vallance admitted to having written the reports herself and invoicing the ACC for them. Lois Vallance, who repaid the money when she appeared in Court for sentencing, was ordered to perform 250 hours community work. She unsuccessfully sought permanent name suppression because she was now providing mental health services. NZ companies report higher crime losses than other countries 17 October 2007 In itrsquos fourth biennial Economic Crime survey examining company theft, bribery, accounting fraud, money laundering and intellectual property breaches, Price Waterhouse Coopers reported that of the 78 New Zealand companies surveyed, 66.7 reported they had experienced at least one of these losses. This is significantly higher than the global average of 42.7. It was reported that theft (money and equipment) was the most prevalent loss experienced by New Zealand businesses, comprising almost a third of responses, with accounting fraud making up a further 29. Twenty percent of cases involved losses of more than 1 million and almost half (48) of the loses were never recovered. Internal audits were responsible for detecting just 20 of the defalcations, whereas half of the cases came to light by accident or staff reporting suspicious behaviour. In 65 of the cases, a company employee was the person responsible for committing the crime, with a quarter of them holding middle-management positions. Security guard stole 55,000 7 October 2007 Emma Havea, a 28 year-old security guard employed by Chubb Security was convicted in Auckland of stealing a total of 55,900 whilst alone inside her security van. Havea admitted taking 300-1000 up to three times a week over a period of five months, either before or after retrieving cash cartridges from ATMrsquos. Woman defrauds a second employer of 68,000 20 August 2007 Andrea Phipps was sentenced to two years imprisonment after pleading guilty to 70 charges of stealing 68,300 from her Christchurch employer, a small family-owned business, where she worked as the Office Manager. Phipps was suspended when discrepancies in the company accounts were discovered and during the suspension she wrote a letter to the company threatening to make a sexual harassment complaint against another employee if the company persisted in referring the accounts discrepancy matter to the Police. Earlier, in 2002, Phipps called herself Andrea de la Hunt and worked for a bank in Auckland. There she stole 52,000 from a relativersquos bank account and forged documents in an unsuccessful attempt to steal 165,000 from another of the bankrsquos customers. In the meantime she laced her partnerrsquos meal with sleeping pills and used petrol to set fire to their home. She was convicted of attempted murder, arson, forgery and theft as a servant and sentenced on appeal to 2frac12 years imprisonment. The sentencing Judge in Christchurch gave Phipps leave to apply for home detention. She and her husband now operate their own cleaning business. PVL update (15 September 2008): A year after the setencing reported above, Andrea Phipps (now also known as Andrea Wilson) reappeared in the Christchurch District Court charged with a 100,000 fraud from two Government departments. She filed false GST returns with Inland Revenue to the value of 36,627, failed to pay 34,000 in tax and received 30,838 in welfare payments from WINZ, that she was not entitled to. Phipps was convicted and sentenced to six months community detention, 260 hours of community work, and ordered to pay reparation to Inland Revenue. PVL update (29 November 2011): Phipps appeared again in Court today for sentencing on 20 new fraud charges, including buying a 30,000 powerboat and a 16,000 car while posing as her mother-in-law, and stealing more than 35,000 from friends, neighbours and employers. In one case she asked a friend to write her a cheque for 28.06 in exchange for 30 cash but then altered the cheque so it read 2806, before using it to pay an outstanding rent bill. Phipps was convicted and sentenced to 12 months of home detention, ordered to pay reparation of 35,538.37, with 5000 to be paid immediately, and the rest at 75 per week. Office Manager ordered to repay employer 32,000 9 August 2007 An Office Manager who worked for a Huntly company for 15 years was ordered to reimburse her former employer 32,713 and a further 15,000 in penalties. Paania Paki resigned from the company following an audit of the companyrsquos accounts which disclosed that during the two years to 2006 she had used the firmrsquos money to furnish her house with appliances and furniture, pay her home telephone, power and credit card bills, have her car repaired, buy cosmetics and jewellery, and spent 10,000 of the companyrsquos money on purchasing 400 items from an on-line auction site. Former Rugby League chairman jailed for 125,000 fraud 3 August 2007 Graham Carden, the former Chairman of the New Zealand Rugby League was sentenced to 21 months imprisonment and fined 42,000 after pleading guilty to six representative charges of forgery and fraud. Carden created two bogus Incorporated Societies that only existed on paper, to receive grants from charitable trusts that had been eligible for funding from the proceeds of poker machines. But instead, he kept the money for himself. He also used the names of several sporting officials, without their knowledge, to lend support to his funding applications. The Department of Internal Affairs spent two years investigating Carden and he originally faced 126 charges to which he initially pleaded not guilty. The representative charges were substituted and he changed his plea to guilty after it was disclosed to him that more than 6,000 documents would be presented and 55 witnesses called. Reparation of 125,210 was sought, however, the sentencing Judge ordered Carden to pay 42,000 and granted him leave to apply for home detention. Senior insurance officer convicted of 111,000 fraud 6 July 2007 A senior employee at Tower Insurance, was convicted of five charges of fraud involving fraudulent payments amounting to more than 111,000. The woman was sentenced to 300 hours community work. She was granted name suppression. PVL Update (11 April 2009): Whilst still before the Court awaiting the outcome of these charges, the woman changed her name and was able to get another job without having to admit to a criminal record. It was only an anonymous tip-off that alerted her new employer to her criminal record. Read story heregtgt Nurse convicted and struck off for theft 23 May 2007 Adrienne Jane Rich, a registered nurse in Christchurch, was convicted of stealing opiate drugs from her employer, and property belonging to a work colleague. She was fine 1080 and subsequently appeared before The Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal which found her conduct reflected adversely on her fitness to practise. It ordered that her nursing registration be cancelled. Forty-five WINZ staff dismissed for 2.2 million of fraud 20 May 2007 Between 2001 and 2006, Work amp Income dismissed 45 of its staff for frauds committed against the Government welfare agency. In most instances the frauds involved employees claiming welfare benefits for themselves, whilst they were working for WINZ. Some staff colluded with friends and family to pay them benefits to which they were not entitled to. More than 2.2 million was stolen. Almost half of the dismissed staff then became lawfully eligible for social welfare payments, and many began repaying the stolen money from their welfare benefits. Librarian steals 23,000 of rare books 17 May 2007 Karen Churton, a 48 year-old mother of three and Librarian-in-charge of Massey Universityrsquos New Zealand-Pacific Collection was convicted of stealing and selling rare New Zealand books which at sale realised her 23,310. Churton had been a librarian at the University for 15 years when Christchurch Police telephoned her as part of an investigation into an unrelated 1 million book theft ring. The Police believed a book they had recovered might belong to the University but Churton denied it was a part of the Universityrsquos collection. Churton had unwittingly sold the rare book to a member of the ring and in a panic after the call from the Police she deleted from the university computer, the titles of the books she had stolen. When Police again approached the University claiming to have more stolen books belonging to the library, a search of the Universityrsquos computer records led staff to deny ownership of the books. However a printed copy of the rare book list (before Churtonrsquos deletions) existed and it was only a chance examination of this list by the Head Librarian that it became apparent the books might belong to the University. Churton was arrested and confessed to selling the books for a total of about 23,000 which she repaid prior to sentencing. She was sentenced to 11 months imprisonment which on appeal was reduced to four months. The Judge noted the offending involved a significant breach of trust. Some 24 rare books valued at up to 40,000 remain unaccounted for. Head Teller embezzled 380,000 from bank 22 April 2005 A Christchurch bank teller who rose to the rank of head teller on account of her reputation for accuracy, and was so well trusted that she was allowed to fill the bankrsquos ATM machine unsupervised, in contravention of bank policy, was convicted of stealing more than 380,000 from her employer. Laura Jean Kidd, aged 43, admitted stealing cash over a long period of time and falsifying bank records to cover up her offending, which was only discovered when the branch manager became suspicious and undertook an after-hours audit. Kidd spent the money on gambling and overseas travel. Head of Womenrsquos Refuge convicted of forgery 4 April 2007 Jeanette Ford, the 44 year-old Director of Aucklandrsquos North Shore Womens Refuge pleaded guilty to four charges of forgery. Ford forged 1250 worth of invoices for reimbursement from the charitable Trust that financially supported the Refuge. In Court, the prosecutor alleged the former CEO had defrauded the womenrsquos refuge of 17,000 over a two year period and had forged documents in the name of colleagues to apply for personal mortgages. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on 11 other fraud charges and found her not guilty on one theft charge. Ford was sentenced to 1,000 hours community service. At least ten people in the last year were accused of committing fraud against charities. A survey last year revealed one in five New Zealand charities were defrauded by employees. PVL update (25 March 2011): Ford was again before the Court today where she was sentenced to three years imprisonment after being convicted of 33 charges of defrauding WINZ of 231,204 over a 13 year period. She created numerous fake identities and also used the names of New Zealanders she knew were living overseas to claim sickness benefits, domestic purposes benefits and accommodation supplements. She was described by WINZ officials as ldquothe face of greedrdquo. Finance manager admits nine year fraud involving 2.1 million 27 March 2007 A 48 year-old Auckland Finance Manager admitted committing 552 fraud offences against his employer over a nine year period. James Keith Smart stole more than 2.1 million and almost 80,000 worth of airline travel for himself, his family and friends. He had worked for the company for 15 years before being caught and accounted for his lavish lifestyle to curious colleagues by explaining he was the beneficiary of a large inheritance. The airline travel fraud was discovered when a new Finance Controller noticed discrepancies in the companyrsquos invoices. Smart admitted to dishonestly booking personal travel on the companyrsquos airline account and paid back the money, telling his employer there were no other irregularities. He was dismissed in 2006. However, more discrepancies later emerged and the 2.1 million fraud was then identified. The company referred the matter to the Serious Fraud Office. Smartrsquos credit card statements showed that he had made cash withdrawals of more than 1.5 million during the period that the offending occurred. Smart owned four properties and the company has placed a lien on the properties in an attempt to recover some of their loss. Smart was sentenced to four years imprisonment. Nurse convicted of stealing drugs 8 December 2006 On 40 - 50 occasions, during the period March to October 2006, Dan Erik Hansson, a 40 year-old nurse, stole approximately 120 ampoules of Fentanyl from a drug safe at Tauranga Hospital, signing the drug register with fake names using medical colleaguersquos details. He also used deceased patientsrsquo details, names of patients who had been discharged and names of patients who were not scheduled for medical procedures in the controlled drug register in order to obtain the Fentanyl. Hansson admitted stealing the drugs and injecting Fentanyl several times for his own use. He was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment and ordered to make reparations of 3,134. In September 2007 the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal found that the conviction reflected adversely on Hanssonrsquos fitness to practise and cancelled his nursing registration. Pharmacist convicted of 10,000 fraud 4 November 2006 Mark Robert Winefield, a Timaru Pharmacist was convicted of 18 representative fraud charges. An audit of the Pharmacy by the Ministry of Health revealed that over a 3frac12 year period Winefield had submitted 898 fraudulent claims for reimbursement from the Ministry for dispensing prescription drugs and medicines. Winefield also forged patientsrsquo signatures and medical practitionerrsquos initials to facilitate his offending. In total the Ministry had paid him 10,865 to which he was not entitled. He was ordered to pay full reparation of this amount, fined 20,0000 as a contribution towards the cost of the investigation, sentenced to 200 hours community service and suspended from practising as a Pharmacist for nine months. Nurse stole restricted drugs 10 October 2006 From January to February 2006 Bruce William Hewson, a nurse, stole Morphine, Pethadine and Fentanyl from a drugs safe at Gisborne Hospital. He took the ampoules to a toilet where he filed the top off the vials leaving a small hole and removing part of the drug using a syringe. He then returned the vials to the drug safe to ensure the integrity of the inventory. Hewson admitted stealing and injecting the drugs 12-15 times and was fined 900 In September 2007 the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal found that the conviction reflected adversely on Hewsonrsquos fitness to practise and cancelled his nursing registration. Nurse with six identities defrauded ACC of 206,000 20 July 2006 Rosina Mary Healey, also known as Rosemary Fitzgerald, Rose Williams, Rosina Williams, R. M. Williams, R. M.B. Williams and R. M. Fitzgerald, aged 63, was convicted of 44 charges of using a document for pecuniary advantage after she had fraudulently claimed payments from the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) for over ten years. An ACC audit revealed that Healey had used six different names, three different IRD numbers and false addresses in order to conceal that she had been employed as a nurse whilst at the same time receiving weekly compensation payments for an injury to her shoulder when living in South Auckland in 1990. For 13 years Williams supplied medical certificates to ACC to prove she was unfit for work. During this time she moved to New Plymouth, and her GP Dr Herbert Morrison moved to Waipu. Despite this distance, she repeatedly travelled more 1,000Km on a return trip to Waipu to obtain medical certificates from Dr Morrison, who from November 1992 had issued her with 44 medical certificates. Healey was sentenced to two years and three months imprisonment and ordered to pay reparation of 206,000.00 at the rate of 20.00 per week. This was Healeys second such offence. In 2003 she had been sentenced to nine months imprisonment for defrauding Work and Income. With her husband Brian Healey - who received 15 months imprisonment, she falsely claimed to have been unemployed, and received welfare payments totalling more than 76,000. In August 2007 the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal said quotthe illegal, immoral, unethical and dishonest conduct demonstrated by Ms Healey over such a long period reflects adversely on her fitness to practisequot, and cancelled her nursing registration. WINZ employee jailed for 102,000 fraud 15 July 2006 A Work and Income (WINZ) Case Manager was sentence to two years and five months imprisonment for creating a fictitious welfare beneficiary and paying the money to himself. Over a five year period 27 year-old Christchurch man Nguha Benjamin Moses approved benefits and other assistance totalling 102,475. Moses created an imaginary person named ldquoManuel Jakesrdquo, who began to receive various welfare benefits and grants, in particular ones which did not involve rigorous checking by the Department. Moses granted ldquoJakesrdquo the unemployment benefit and accommodation supplement, and a sickness benefit which was later transferred to an invalids benefit. ldquoJakesrdquo got a training incentive allowance to attend an IT course, WINZ also paid for his study costs, a laptop computer, books, and stationery. Special needs grants totalling 1000 to buy food, a household appliance, and for travel to see a specialist medical consultant were authorised for payment by Moses. He also left notes on the file indicating ldquoJakesrdquo was on the Policersquos witness protection programme. When workloads were redistributed in the Papanui WINZ office where Moses worked, the file was transferred to another Case Manager. Moses quickly placed a letter on the file from ldquoJakesrdquo in which he told the Government department that he had gone overseas and no longer needed a benefit. Mosesrsquo wife was completely unaware of the 102,000 her husband had defrauded, as he gambled it all away. The sentencing Judge observed that although Moses already had previous convictions for dishonesty in 1996 and 1997, he suspected the offending was able to go on for so long because Moses had bee held in such high regard by his employer. Refugee Agency CEO jailed for stealing 745,00 29 May 2006 Patrick Jackson, the head of the Government-funded Refugees as Survivors Trust, an organisation responsible for counselling and resettling traumatised refugees into New Zealand was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison for stealing 745,000 over a 2frac12 year period from the tax-payer funded trust. Jackson gambled away 660,000 of the money at a local casino - on 17 occasions, he gambled for eight hours or more, although his longest session was 14frac12 hours. In one year he spent 28,000 minutes at the casino (the equivalent of 19 uninterrupted days). Jackson said ldquoIt was easy to keep going there because no one paid any attention to merdquo . Solicitor stole 700,000 7 April 2006 A 69 year-old Christchurch solicitor, Brian Joseph Fay, was convicted of stealing 700,000 from an elderly client over a period of 6frac12 years. The client had earlier signed over power of attorney to Fay after he became too unwell to look after his own financial affairs. He spent the money on travel and investments. He gambled away 113,000 . Fay was sentenced to 4 years imprisonment and struck off the Law Society Register. Credit Controller stole 84,000 from employer 11 March 2006 Paul Robert Crighton, a 40 year-old Credit Controller was sentenced to two years imprisonment after admitting two representative charges of theft as a servant. Between 2002 and 2006 Crighton admitted to stealing a total of 84,000 from his employer, who in a victim impact report, stated Crighton had had his total trust. Prior to sentencing, Crighton repaid the stolen money and the sentencing Judge allowed him leave to apply for home detention. Nurse convicted of stealing drugs 21 January 2006 Megan Claire Adair, a Wanganui nurse, was convicted under the Misuse of Drugs Act of stealing Morphine and Pethidine after an investigation identified drugs being assigned to patients who were not prescribed them, and to patients who never received them. Adair was sentenced to 100 hours of community work. In September 2007 the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal found that the conviction reflected adversely on Adairrsquos fitness to practise and cancelled her nursing registration. Restaurant Manager stole 16,000 from employer 5 January 2006 A 38 year-old Christchurch restaurant manager, Murat Genccedilosmano287lu, was convicted of embezzling 16,000 from his employer. He was spared a term of imprisonment so that he could begin repaying the stolen money but after several months he failed to pay back anything and was subsequently sentenced to six months imprisonment. Treasurer convicted of 334 counts of fraud 24 March 2005 Maria Tait, a 54 year-old honorary treasurer for a Runanga was charged with 334 counts of document fraud. In a 2frac12 year period she wrote out 270 cheques amounting to some 186,000 which she either cashed for herself or deposited into her own back account. Almost all the cheques were made out to cash but on the cheque stub the names of legitimate companies were entered. Tait denied any dishonesty and claim the money was payment for work she had done, although the Runanga said there was never any authorisation for Tait to be paid for the volunteer position she filled. Tait held a loyalty card issued by a local casino and its records disclosed she had a turnover of 1.6 million, including up to 54,000 on one day. Tait, who had previously been recognised for introducing strict financial governance at the Runanga, was convicted and sentenced to three years imprisonment. Consultant steals 2.3 million 15 October 2004 John Bernard Denison, a 49 year-old Australian IT Project Manager working for the Ministry of Health in Wellington was sentenced to three years imprisonment for stealing 2.3 million from the Ministry. The money had been legitimately destined as payments to three medical laboratories, who contacted the Department when the funds did not arrive. Instead, Denison hacked into the Ministryrsquos computer system and diverted the money into an account he had set up using a fake Australian identity. All the money was recovered Earlier, over the course of just six days, Denison had unsuccessfully used his computer skills to try and steal a total of 25 million from the Ministry. Finance officer jailed for stealing 447,000 from employer 7 July 2004 A Finance Officer exploited an Auckland companyrsquos restructuring process to steal 447,000. Thirty-eight year old Brazilian Cliceu Goncalves Romagnoli was imprisoned for two years and four months after being convicted of defrauding his employer by making 128 unauthorised payments over a 15 month period. He spent the money on luxury cars, overseas holidays, clothing and an Auckland apartment. Romagnoli repaid 200,000 prior to sentencing and the Judge ordered that a further 10,000 found on him when he attempted to flee the country should also be paid to his former employer.
Comments
Post a Comment