Ruff justice: Revisiting the Dog Tax War in the Hokianga
The Dog Tax War. The very name ensures the events of 1898 in Hokianga can be safely categorised as farce rather than tragedy. However, the story of those events contains elements that could have been taken from today's newspapers, apart from two symbols of late-Victorian modernity: the Maxim gun and the telephone. Fortunately, the
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Otago Daily Times
2 days ago
- Otago Daily Times
Ex-All Black duped by $4m Chch Ponzi scheme
For more than seven years the Tuiras purported to operate an investment business out of Christchurch, raising more than $4m from investors hoping for high returns. However, none of the money was being invested and instead went to fund the couple's lifestyle and repay other investors. RNZ National Crime Correspondent Sam Sherwood reports. Inside Thomas and Aroha Tuira's home potential investors would be treated to tales of high-net-worth investors that were in his "proximity". Not one to shy away from a name drop, he'd say he was personally connected to the likes of NBA legend Michael Jordan and speaker and philanthropist Tony Robbins. The pitches were successful. One former All Black invested money believing his funds were being used to build a sports stadium commissioned by Jordan, while others thought their money was going towards housing projects, a dental firm and education. Between May 2014 and May 2021, the couple's company Ngākau Aroha Investments Limited, received more than $4 million from 61 investors who were promised returns. However, the reality of the situation was far from perception. Thomas, who is known as Alex, had no personal connection with Jordan or Robbins, and the Tuira's did not invest any of the funds, instead using it to fund their lifestyle and repay other investors. The couple's Ponzi scheme would eventually come crashing down after repeated requests from investors for the withdrawal of their funds and in late 2021 the Serious Fraud Office came knocking on their door. Last week Alex Tuira pleaded guilty to two representative charges of obtaining $4m by deception. On Monday, Aroha also pleaded guilty to the same charges. Court documents obtained by RNZ reveal the full story behind the couple's criminal enterprise. The Tuiras According to court documents neither Alex, nor his wife Aroha, have any formal qualifications or any experience in financial management, investment services or investing. The couple are Jehovah's witnesses and of Māori descent. They were closely associated with members of their respective communities in Christchurch. In 2019, Ngākau Aroha Investments Limited (NAIL) was incorporated with Alex listed as the director. In May 2019, Aroha was added as a director. The couple each held a 40 percent shareholding in NAIL, with the remaining 20 percent split between their three daughters. NAIL's main source of income was via investors, although it was also hired by a small number of entities. Alex gave introductory seminars to encourage Māori to become debt-free and was also hired to provide "governance mastery" and business advisory services. Alex's financial literacy seminars were pitched at a "basic level" and were modelled on seminars he had attended by other public figures such as Robbins and American businessman and author Robert Kiyosaki. Court documents say the couple "purported to operate an investment business out of Christchurch", offering investment opportunities, financial advice, and financial literacy training. "Mr and Mrs Tuira presented a facade that they were successful and well-connected businesspeople who had the ability to invest funds and generate high returns. In reality, the defendants did not operate an investment business and did not invest any of the funds." The couple's "fraudulent stratagem" involved a "continuous course of deceptive conduct". "As at the date of the first investment, the defendants' accounts were overdrawn. From the outset of the scheme, they relied on investor funds as their primary source of income." Alex was described as the "architect" of the fraudulent operation and "face of the purported business". "He pitched investment opportunities to new investors to encourage them to come on board. He was the primary presenter and outlined to potential investors his personal 'proximity' to wealthy and successful individuals and access to opportunities to generate high investment returns." Aroha was the "primary source of contact" for investors once they had been "recruited". "In addition to communicating about investments, Mrs Tuira regularly communicated with investors on a personal level to generate love and trust. Mrs Tuira also attended all the pitch meetings with investors, often prompting Mr Tuira to say certain things, and signed the various agreements alongside Mr Tuira." The couple took advantage of relationships they had developed in the Māori and Jehovah's Witness communities. "Their modus operandi involved presenting as a strong, loving whānau who embraced the principles and values of these communities. They welcomed investors, as friends and whānau, into their home." The pitch The Tuiras would arrange in-person meetings with prospective investors, often at their home. The presentation would often be accompanied by a PowerPoint which included "high-level information" about their values and connections with "wealthy and successful people" including Jordan and others. "Mr Tuira showed pictures of himself with Tony Robbins and Robert Kiyosaki and described them as personal mentors. In reality, the photos were taken when Mr Tuira attended large seminars presented by them." On several occasions, he told investors Indian billionaire Sanjiv Saddy was going to invest a billion dollars into the couple and their businesses. "While Mr Saddy is a wealthy businessman based in India and was introduced to Mr Tuira on one occasion ... he never invested in NAIL or any other business associated to the Tuira family," court documents state. Many of the investors had "limited experience" with investing. "As such, they rarely sought detail from Mr Tuira of how funds were to be invested and were satisfied by confirmation that the funds would be invested. Mr and Mrs Tuira used the promise of guaranteed high returns to encourage investment." Alex would also mention specific investment opportunities to lure them in such as former All Black Joe Moody who believed his funds were being used to build a sports stadium commissioned by Jordan. Other investors believed their money was going towards things such as housing projects, a dental firm and education. The couple would often pitch investments as "time-sensitive" and only available to certain people. In a text to a couple in June 2019, Alex said he wanted to "propose an opportunity" where he could do a 50 percent return in 16 months "plus bonuses". "Everything is in contract form as appropriate. It is time sensitive and exclusive." In November 2018 he told another investor that as they were part of the "small immediate proximity" he wanted to keep them updated with opportunities. "Right now we have our best investment deal on the table which is 6 months with a 15% Return on Investment. However because this deal is so awesome we only have a small window of opportunity to take it. So for this particular deal all paperwork would need to be complete by 4pm tomorrow. There is absolutely no obligation to take this offer, it is simply out of courtesy and love for you both that we are sharing this Arohapumau Aroha & Alex xoxo." The spreadsheet The summary of facts says despite the couple representing to investors that NAIL was an investment business, at no stage during the period of offending, were genuine investments made. Rather, the funds were used in two ways - paid to other investors as purported returns on investments, and transferred into accounts operated by the couple and used to fund their families' day-to-day expenses. "NAIL was effectively insolvent from 2017 onwards." Between May 2014 and May 2021 the couple and or NAIL received $4.7m. Of that, $4m was from investors. From that money $1.4m was payment to investors, more than $500,000 went on travel, $478,000 on personal expenditure and $270,000 on rent. Other expenses included contractors, finance, consultants and vehicle expenses. The couple took several steps to disguise their offending, such as providing false information to their accountants and setting up a new company in 2019 called Power to Me Aotearoa Tapui limited (Power to Me) and telling investors that their outstanding returns were connected to shareholdings in a "successful and promising business". In April 2019, the couple's former accountant emailed the couple expressing concerns about the viability of their "business activities". "This is of particular concern when looking at your investors and their returns, which appear to be funded (along with principal payments) by new investors. As we mentioned to you, while we realise this is not your intention, this could be perceived from an outside party (including your investors) to be a 'Ponzi Scheme' which is for all intents and purposes an illegal activity." The summary of facts says the couple told their former accountant and his colleagues that Power to Me was a "genuine business venture" and that money was being invested into it. "In reality, Mr and Mrs Tuira were not conducting any genuine business activities and their only source of income was funds obtained from investors." By mid-2021, the couple were receiving a large number of requests from investors for the withdrawal of funds. The couple tried to get new investments, but were unable to meet all of the requests. About the same time they created a spreadsheet named "here is the reality of our money 2021". The spreadsheet had three tabs - investments received, investments made, and summary. According to the pair's calculations they owed $7.9m to investors and creditors such as Finance Now, Q Card, Westpac and ANZ. Investors were given an array of explanations by the couple in their attempts to delay repaying them money including illness, delays with clearing funds and legal problems. "These successful delay tactics meant the defendants were able to continue their offending over a number of years and assisted them in identifying further investors and soliciting further investments." The SFO investigates In November 2021, the Serious Fraud Office announced they were investigating the couple following continued failures by the couple to respond to request funds to be withdrawn. In an email sent to some investors shortly after, seen by RNZ, Alex wrote that "for a variety of reasons" the expected returns on their shareholding "had not been realised to date". "That under performance will be reflected in the value of your shareholdings. "That has caused disquiet and lead to what are in our opinion unjustified aspirations against our good names and a complaint to the Serious Fraud Office" (sic). He said all such claims were denied. "We are taking legal advice concerning initiating defamation proceedings. "Although we have received a number of messages of support, others apparently regarded their share purchases as some form of personal guarantee of return (which was never the case) and the situation has deteriorated to a point where we no longer feel able to continue to work with some people." The SFO's investigation would reveal the couple obtained by deception $3.9m from 55 investors including former Ngāi Tahu chairperson Sir Mark Solomon. In May 2023 the SFO announced it had charged the couple. The couple were due to go to trial last week. However, Alex pleaded guilty to his charges before it began and then on Monday Aroha did the same. The pair are due to be sentenced in November.
Otago Daily Times
2 days ago
- Otago Daily Times
Condemnation grows over Israel's killing of prominent reporter
A prominent Al Jazeera journalist, who had previously been threatened by Israel, was killed along with four colleagues in an Israeli airstrike on Sunday in an attack condemned by journalists and rights groups. Israel's military said it targeted and killed Anas Al Sharif, alleging he had headed a Hamas militant cell and was involved in rocket attacks on Israel. Al Jazeera, which is funded by the Qatari government, rejected the assertion, and before his death Al Sharif had also denied such claims by Israel. "Anas Al Sharif and his colleagues were among the last remaining voices in Gaza conveying the tragic reality to the world," Al Jazeera said. Al Sharif, 28, was among a group of four Al Jazeera journalists and an assistant who died in an airstrike on a tent near Al Shifa Hospital in eastern Gaza City, Gaza officials and Al Jazeera said. A hospital official said two other people died. A sixth journalist, local freelance reporter Mohammad Al-Khaldi, was also killed in the strike, medics at Al Shifa Hospital said on Monday. Calling Al Sharif "one of Gaza's bravest journalists", Al Jazeera said the attack was a "desperate attempt to silence voices in anticipation of the occupation of Gaza". The other journalists killed were Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, Al Jazeera said. "The deliberate targeting of journalists by Israel in the Gaza Strip reveals how these crimes are beyond imagination," Qatari Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, said on X. The UN human rights office condemned the killings, saying the actions by Israel's military represented a "grave breach of international humanitarian law" as Palestinians reported the heaviest bombardments in weeks. Its post on social media platform X was accompanied by a photograph of flattened blue tents next to a bullet-ridden wall in Gaza City. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is "gravely concerned" about the repeated targeting of journalists in Gaza, his spokesperson said. The Israeli military said in a statement that Al Sharif led a Hamas cell and "was responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians" and Israeli troops, citing intelligence and documents it said were discovered in Gaza as evidence but which it did not disclose. Israel denies deliberately targeting journalists, saying many of those killed in Israeli airstrikes were members of Islamist militant groups, working under the guise of the press. Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee posted undated photos on X that appeared to show Al Sharif with Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the Hamas October 2023 attack on Israel, and other Hamas officials. Reuters could not verify their authenticity. It was not clear when the purported images were taken nor how the military acquired them. Adraee wrote that only a "terrorist" would be seen with Hamas officials, without providing any context as to why Al Sharif, a journalist, had allegedly met them. People gathered at Sheikh Radwan Cemetery in the heart of the Gaza Strip on Monday to mourn the journalists. Friends, colleagues and relatives consoled each another, many wiping away tears as they bid farewell. Al Sharif was previously part of a Reuters team which in 2024 won a Pulitzer Prize in the category of Breaking News Photography for coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. The war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza is the deadliest on record for journalists, according to the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs' Costs of War project. The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said 238 journalists have been killed since the war started on October 7, 2023. The Committee to Protect Journalists said at least 186 journalists have been killed in the Gaza conflict. A press freedom group and a United Nations expert previously warned that Al Sharif's life was in danger due to his reporting from Gaza. UN Special Rapporteur Irene Khan said last month that Israel's claims against him were unsubstantiated. PRE-RECORDED MESSAGE Al Jazeera said Al Sharif had left a social media message to be posted in the event of his death that read, "...I never hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or misrepresentation, hoping that God would witness those who remained silent". Israel's military had named Al Sharif in October as one of six Gaza journalists it alleged were members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, citing documents it said showed lists of people who completed training courses and salaries. 'Al Jazeera categorically rejects the Israeli occupation forces' portrayal of our journalists as terrorists and denounces their use of fabricated evidence,' the network said in a statement at the time. The Committee to Protect Journalists, which in July urged the international community to protect Al Sharif, said in a statement that Israel had failed to provide any evidence to back up its allegations against him. Al Sharif, whose X account showed more than 500,000 followers, posted on the platform minutes before his death that Israel had been intensely bombarding Gaza City for more than two hours. Palestinian militant group Hamas, which runs Gaza, said the killing may signal the start of an Israeli offensive. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will launch a new offensive to dismantle Hamas strongholds in Gaza, where a hunger crisis is escalating after 22 months of war. "The assassination of journalists and the intimidation of those who remain pave the way for a major crime that the occupation is planning to commit in Gaza City," Hamas said in a statement.
Newsroom
2 days ago
- Newsroom
Minnie Dean's letter
On this day 130 years ago, on August 12, 1895, a plump-cheeked, 49-year-old woman met her dreadful end at the end of a rope. Minnie Dean is the only woman in New Zealand history to have received the death penalty. She was charged with the murder of an 11-month-old baby entrusted to her care. Following her sentencing, she spent several weeks in the Invercargill gaol's condemned cell and wrote a near 50-page manuscript outlining her interpretation of events. (She wanted it published after her death, with the proceeds given to her husband and a widow of her acquaintance). I was curious to read it firsthand. On a cold June day, I visited National Archives in Wellington to inspect Minnie's meditation. I was handed a heavy file holding her manuscript and trial notes. The archive reading room was even quieter than usual; its final days in Mulgrave Street pending its long anticipated amalgamation with the National and Turnbull Libraries. I took a seat at a long desk in a shaft of weak winter sun. Out the window I could see a cruise ship berthed in Wellington harbour. It was eerie to touch the very same paper that Minnie had once done felt. Her hard-to-decipher handwriting, her curling cursive, in blue ink on lined and yellowed paper, is easier to read in its digitised version, but nowhere near as compelling as the original. There are few mistakes or crossings out, just the odd ink blot and insertion. Was this an inborn exactitude or did she painstakingly write several versions until she finally achieved one she was happy with? Words common in the Victorian age but since mostly lost, such as 'cripple', 'tidings', and '[mental] asylum', are scattered throughout. As the document nears its end, as does she, her writing becomes more scrawled, imbued with a growing sense of despair and hopelessness. * Minnie's back story involved an early migration from her Scottish birthplace of Greenock to Tasmania, where at 16 she gave birth to a daughter; followed by a move, while pregnant, sometime in the early 1860s, to Invercargill. A marriage to a local farmer, Charles Dean (sometimes described as 'feckless and dull' in contrast to the 'highly intelligent' Minnie) was shadowed by a series of tragedies. These included the drowning in a well of Minnie's oldest daughter and her two young children, Minnie's grandchildren, and the burning down of The Larches, the house Charles and Minnie had bought outside the rural Southland town of Winton, forcing them to rebuild a much more primitive dwelling. To add to their woes, a man to whom they owed money came and took away their 115 fruit trees. Sometime in the late 1880s, the hard-up and increasingly desperate Minnie commenced her career of taking in, and occasionally adopting, other people's unwanted offspring. At any one time she had up to nine children under her wing. But, in October 1889, after a short illness, a six-month-old baby died from convulsions; then in March 1891, a six-week-old infant (some accounts say younger) perished from congested lungs. Although Minnie was cleared of direct responsibility, and the children at The Larches were found to be well nourished, the coroner recommended that Minnie reduce the number of children living in her cramped confines. She was now under police and public scrutiny. In early May 1895, an official investigation was launched into the suspicious disappearance of a baby. Minnie had been spotted boarding a train with a hatbox and a young baby but disembarking later with only the hatbox. The police tracked down the baby's grandmother, Jane Hornsby, who had handed over her one-month-old granddaughter, Eva Hornsby, into Minnie's keep. The police took Jane to The Larches where she identified her granddaughter's clothing. Minnie was arrested and charged with infanticide. Eva's body and that of a larger baby (later identified as the eleven-month-old Dorothy Edith Carter), as well as the skeleton of a third child were discovered buried beneath some freshly planted bulbs. Other children were also found to have vanished from The Larches. * Much of Minnie's penned lament is moving. She clearly loved, and was loved by, her ragtag collection of children. When the police turned up at The Larches the resident urchins looked happy and well fed. Minnie wrote, 'I'd have clad them in gold if I'd had it.' Her anguish that her remaining brood of chicks was not allowed to visit her during those long frightening weeks in jail is evident. 'My body and spiritual welfare have been well cared for, but the one yearning wish of my heart has to remain ungratified. I have been refused to let see the children'. Just as haunting is her gnawing regret over her 'profession': 'If I had never troubled with other people's children I would not now be where I am. They made me a social pariah.' At her sensational trial at the Invercargill Supreme Court, Minnie faced an all-male jury (women were not allowed to serve on New Zealand juries until 1942) and an unashamedly partial judge, Justice Williams, who directed the jury that a charge of manslaughter would be a 'weak-kneed compromise.' In his 2024 book Fragile foundations: the application of English criminal law to crimes committed in Aotearoa New Zealand between 1826 and 1907 retired high court judge David Collins dissects the trial, observing that Justice Williams' summing up resembled 'the closing address one would expect from Crown counsel rather than the summing up of an impartial judge'. The jury returned the verdict of the wilful murder of Dorothy Edith Carter. The baby had suffered an overdose of laudanum, an opiate then commonly used to 'soothe' babies. The evidence, although significant, was circumstantial, with the Crown unable to establish that the death was premeditated. Minnie, who maintained the overdose was 'accidental', did not appear in the witness box to give evidence. In her prison cell, Minnie wrote, 'I have always given laudanum to children to keep them quiet while travelling… I could not do without it for a crying child is such an annoyance to other passengers and there would be comments made and questions asked that I was not always disposed to answer.' The term 'laudanum' comes up many times in Minnie's last statement, along with the sense of its general acceptability for 'soothing' fractious infants in such medicines as Mrs Winslow's Soothing Syrup. The other recurring theme is of incessant crying of both Dorothy and Eva; there is no reason not to believe this or how dreadful this must have been for all parties. The trial notes depict the harshness of the period. Even tiny Eva Hornsby, who it was determined died of asphyxiation (supposedly smothered by Minnie, as inferred from two small bruises at the back of her head), had already sustained injuries – burned fingers during her first month of life when she was nursed by another woman – before her grandmother passed her over to Minnie. These burns helped identify Eva's body when it was dug up from Minnie's flowerbed. I also wanted to believe Minnie's distress on finding that the bottle of milk given to her by Eva's grandmother was 'ice cold'. 'She knew how far I had to travel with her that night before I could get a warm drink for her. After the child stopped crying I laid her on the bench in the shed (Clarendon), spread the pink shawl on the ground, placed the paper parcels in the shawl to make them into one parcel. I was on my knees doing this when I saw the baby rolling over. I made a spring to catch her but it was too late. The child fell to the ground and never moved after.' But babies of that age cannot roll. * Minnie's circumstances as a kind of caregiver were dire. Winton's winters are bitter, and The Larches was described as a 'hovel'. But maybe Minnie's gravest challenge was her obvious inability to breastfeed the babies in her care. In Minnie's time, most infants were breastfed. For those who weren't the death rate was astronomical, with 'Death for want of breastmilk' often recorded on death certificates. The usual alternatives to breastfeeding were cow's milk or pap (a thin gruel of flour or oatmeal and water). Raw cow's milk is susceptible to bacterial and faecal contamination, and was sometimes watered down and sweetened, while dirty and unwashed 'sucking bottles' often resulted in dysentery and typhoid, or even pneumonia, if bacteria were inhaled. These illnesses were all common causes of death. Until the late 1800s in rural Southland, water for diluting milk or making pap was sourced from streams, rainwater, or wells, though groundwater was sometimes fouled by long drops. Even with basic sanitation knowledge, obtaining, warming, and feeding milk—and cleaning equipment—was difficult in primitive conditions like The Larches or when travelling by train and staying in hotels. An incident that helped turn public sentiment against Minnie occurred in 1892 when Christchurch police traced her to a boarding house and took charge of a three-week-old child who she had adopted from its single mother for £25. Damningly, Minnie was reported to be feeding the baby with a bottle containing 'sour and curdled milk'. But is that really so surprising in the days before pasteurisation and refrigeration? The best work on the Dean case is Lynley Hood's 1994 masterpiece Minnie Dean: Her life and crimes. She emailed me last week, 'Minnie Dean was New Zealand's most famous child care worker. Her business of caring for unwanted babies was an unwelcome reminder to righteous Victorians that their campaign for the suppression of fornication was a dismal failure. Some unwanted babies were killed or abandoned at birth. Others were cared for by women like Minnie Dean. The debate over her guilt or innocence continues to this day. Was Minnie Dean a mercenary cold-blooded killer or a scapegoat sacrificed on the altar of Victorian hypocrisy?' Caring for, and sometimes even getting rid of, unwanted babies was an unavoidable evil in the nineteenth century. Did Minnie do society's dirty work and suffer for its sins? She was ostracised, othered, outlawed, and eventually condemned for her alleged crimes against children. Closing her manuscript, I was glad she had a small fire, flowers, and sunlight in her cell as she awaited her hanging.
