Accountant given nearly six years' jail for $1.7 million Covid fraud
ABIGAIL DOUGHERTY/STUFF
An Auckland man has been sentenced to almost six years in jail over a $1.7 million Covid-19 fraud.
Luke Daniel Rivers, also known as Mai Qu, pleaded guilty to 29 charges including wage subsidy and small business cashflow scheme fraud, and money laundering.
The schemes were set up to help businesses through the disruption of Covid-19 lockdowns.
Rivers was sentenced in the Auckland District Court.
Ministry of Social Development (MSD) group general manager of client service delivery George van Ooyen said the fraud was premeditated, sophisticated and solely for personal financial gain. It involved the use of forged documents.
"The volume of fake documents and the repeated nature of the conduct, point to a significant degree of premeditation and sophistication.
"What he did is an abuse of the Covid-19 relief schemes, solely for personal financial gain.
"The wage subsidy was a high trust scheme providing rapid payments up front for businesses to keep their employees in their jobs and provide some form of financial security."
Inland Revenue (IRD) spokesperson Bernadette Newman said he used forged documents to get IRD numbers for people who had never been to New Zealand.
"Rivers used his specialist knowledge as an accountant to game the system. And he used the identities of more than 200 other people to carry out his scheme - all to maximise the amount of funds he could apply for," she said.
"He abused both the public trust in the accounting profession and his clients' trust in him to keep their information private.
"His tax offending is effectively ongoing as he hasn't remedied his failure to file GST and income tax returns for his four companies."
Van Ooyen said MSD was still working to uphold the integrity of the wage subsidy scheme.
"We have active investigations ongoing. Court outcomes and debt recovery will continue beyond this."
"As of today, 46 people have now been sentenced with a further 49 people still before the courts.
"We've also made civil recovery decisions in relation to 52 businesses. More than 25,000 repayments have been made, totalling $830.4 million."
Newman said IRD had prosecuted 14 people for fraud involving Covid supports.
"Eleven cases are progressing through the court system, five cases where defendants are awaiting sentence, and a number of active investigations around other Covid-19 support fraud cases.
"Increased funding this year means IR can do more audits and debt collection work, and investigations into specific sectors can continue."
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