Indian-Origin Couple Swindled Crores In New Zealand, Escape To Chennai Did Not Help
An Indian-origin couple has been convicted of defrauding New Zealand's child welfare agency, Oranga Tamariki, of more than NZ$2 million (over Rs 10 crore).
Neha Sharma has been sentenced to three years in jail after pleading guilty to multiple fraud-related charges, including obtaining money by deception, money laundering, and using forged documents. Her husband, Amandeep Sharma, has also pleaded guilty to deception and laundering charges, The NZ Herald reported.
Before their arrest, the couple flew to Chennai in a business class flight, shortly after authorities began closing in on their fraudulent scheme. Their escape was short-lived. They were soon brought back under investigation. At the time, the couple owned three properties, three cars, and had nearly $800,000 (over Rs 4 crore) in cash across their joint bank accounts.
Neha Sharma worked as a property and facilities manager at Oranga Tamariki, while Amandeep Sharma ran a construction company named Divine Connection. Their fraudulent scheme started gaining traction roughly eight months after Divine Connection was onboarded as a contractor.
No one at the agency knew the two were married. This allowed Neha Sharma to use her internal access to route over 200 maintenance jobs and 326 inflated invoices to Divine Connection between July 2021 and October 2022, directly benefiting her husband's company. Some of the money was even paid for personal items, like a new television for their home.
Neha Sharma joined the agency in 2021 by submitting fake job references. Despite the agency's strict rules about conflicts of interest, she never disclosed her ties to Divine Connection or its director, her husband.
In one text message between the two, Neha Sharma told Amandeep Sharma, "You just say you are working for me. He should not know you are my husband...will be a huge issue for me."
She even brought in a friend to help push more work to Divine Connection through the agency. During office hours, she wasn't just authorising payments, but was also helping run the company.
The scam began to crumble in October 2022 when a colleague questioned the repeated job assignments going to the same contractor. On November 2, the day Neha Sharma was due for a meeting to explain the irregularities, she abruptly resigned by email. She claimed she was being unfairly targeted and refused to attend the meeting.
Within 20 minutes of her resignation, Amandeep Sharma was removed as Divine Connection's director and the company's address was changed, seen as an apparent attempt to cover their tracks.
The Serious Fraud Office raided their property on March 30, 2023. During the raids, Neha Sharma claimed Divine Connection had been approved before she joined Oranga Tamariki and that she had disclosed the conflict. These claims were later proven false by the evidence.
Oranga Tamariki has since tightened its internal controls and oversight to prevent such misconduct in the future. CEO Andrew Bridgman said, "Corruption of this kind is utterly unacceptable. Oranga Tamariki takes any case of fraud extremely seriously, as shown by its actions once concerns were raised."
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