Unit targets corruption
The announcement of a new anticorruption unit within police comes three months after a former cop was jailed for selling information to gangs.
Police Commissioner Mike Bush made the announcement about the new National Integrity Unit yesterday.
Led by a detective superintendent with specialist investigators, Bush said the new unit is an important component in the police’s focus on deterring, preventing and detecting corruption.
The announcement comes after a corrupt Auckland policeman who sold police database information to gangs was jailed in 2019.
Vili Mahe Taukolo, 31, was sentenced to two years and two months in jail in December.
In light of Taukolo’s offending, Auckland City District Commander Superintendent Karyn Malthus said at the time a comprehensive internal review had been conducted to examine police processes and establish if there were any changes it could implement to prevent this type of offending from taking place in the future.
Data obtained by Stuff in 2019 showed 89 officers misused the National Intelligence Application database in the past four years.
Police can access the database from their mobile phone or via a computer.
Since 2015, 184 police staff have been investigated for possible misuse of the database.
Eighty-nine of the allegations were upheld.
As of October, 33 investigations had been launched into alleged police misuse of the NIA in 2019.
Of those, seven had been upheld while 22 were ongoing.
Making the announcement, Bush said corruption was ‘‘still very rare’’ in the police force.
‘‘The vast majority of our people uphold the highest values and act with integrity every day. I am immensely proud of them and the work they do.
‘‘As organised criminal groups attempt to grow and proliferate, it is important we remain vigilant against attempts to infiltrate, and have measures in place to protect our staff as much as possible from compromise and corruption,’’ Bush said.
‘‘I want to be very clear – we have zero tolerance for this behaviour.’’ The new National Integrity Unit will work closely with the police’s professional conduct team to help ensure police integrity is not eroded, Bush said.
‘‘The public can have full trust and confidence that their police service is maintaining robust systems to deter, prevent and detect any criminal offending within their ranks and throughout the organisation.
‘‘Most other respected policing jurisdictions around the world have established similar units to help maintain integrity within their organisations,’’ he said.
Bush wanted New Zealanders to have the same reassurance.
‘‘Our purpose in New Zealand Police is for people to be safe and feel safe and our mission is to make New Zealand the safest country.
‘‘We can only achieve these if New Zealanders continue to have, and maintain, trust and confidence in us.’’
The unit is based at Police National Headquarters in Wellington.