Police: Pay for your own inquiry

Under-resourced police are telling victims of financial theft to pay for their own inquiries, a private investigator says.

A business owner, who asked not to be named, said he was annoyed when the police told him to pay a private investigator to investigate an ex-employee who allegedly stole thousands of dollars through undeclared cash sales.

The business owner provided police with email correspondence about the alleged embezzlement and spent months ‘‘nagging’’ them to investigate.

Police told told him in an email last year that they would not investigate because they did ‘‘not have the resources’’.

‘‘Police suggest that you could enlist the services of a forensic accountant or private investigator,’’ the email said.

A private investigator charged him more than $4000 to investigate the case, which remained ongoing.

The Investigators managing director Daniel Toresen said the police financial crime group (FCG) often left cases uninvestigated for up to a year, and left some investigated cases for up to three years before prosecuting offenders.

Head of the financial crime group, Detective Sergeant Iain Chapman, said his staff were not fobbing victims off to private investigators, or leaving cases and prosecutions idle for years.

‘‘Police are a finite resource. Cases have to be prioritised. We are not struggling to keep on top of case loads,’’ Chapman said.

‘‘Sometimes there are cases that victims and private investigators feel are solvable without knowing the intricacies of this type of work.’’

Toresen said almost one quarter of his and his team of five’s workload was investigating cybercrime cases, such as online fraud and financial scams.

Victims wanted their money back, so in many cases, police pushed responsibility back onto victims, he said.

Toresen said all of the police units tasked with fighting financial cyber-crime were small and heavily worked.

Chapman said the FCG had 83 staff in December, 10 short from being fully staffed.

He said Police Minister Stuart Nash had promised him that the 1800 extra officers to be recruited over the next three years would include more FCG staff.

Nailing cyber crooks FOCUS p10