Justice elusive in white-collar crime
She’s in jail; he’s jobless. The inquiry that forced his resignation is sealed forever. Case closed. I can’t help but wonder what powerful influence (former) Transport Ministry staffer and fraudster Joanne Harrison had on (now former) Auditor-General Martin Matthews in his time as her boss at the ministry. Harrison stole $725,000 from the New Zealand taxpayer. Matthews says his suspicions were raised last year, but four senior staff warned him much earlier. Harrison then muscled them out of their jobs. He got a separate and ominous warning in 2014 from the Victoria Police’s Fraud and Extortion Squad, who wrote seeking his help to track her down. Nothing was done.
The great work done by Labour MP Sue Moroney over the past year has resulted in a Parliamentary committee refusing to tell Kiwis what the report by Sir Maarten Wevers contains on Matthews. Despite Moroney crediting the media for pushing State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes to change his mind and order the Wevers investigation, no OIA request will crack open the final details of this sorry mess.
And really, although Harrison’s grubby dealings were at the higher end of the scale, they were just the tip of the iceberg.
Our investigation into fraud case handling shows almost 900 cases lie untouched in police inboxes. Kiwis who’ve been ripped off by criminals are paying for private investigators to do the work the police don’t have the money and staff to do; and once the fat files are delivered on a platter, months pass without results.
Few of us have ever hired a PI, but I can tell you, they don’t come cheap.
How galling that must be for the victims. The likelihood of crims being caught is so small that organised crime gangs have sniffed it out as a lucrative new income stream.
It’s almost failsafe – they know they’re unlikely to be sprung. In a news cycle captured by the ongoing saga of Metiria Turei’s admission of benefit fraud, the situation is almost comical.
The hired guns admit that when police do get the chance to investigate they’re doing a top-notch job, but that’ll be cold comfort for anyone robbed of their retirement savings by some scumbag keen to fund their own penchant for yachts and champagne.
Winston Peters said keeping the Wevers report secret from the public was ‘‘unacceptable’’.
Surely a backlog of close to 1000 fraud cases also qualifies.
Ali Mau is the host of Radio LIVE Drive, 3-6pm