SPCS

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS INC.

South Pacific a corruption and money laundering paradise

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Deregistered shell companies drift across the South Pacific without oversight, but crucial to corruption and money laundering. Authorities in Europe are looking for nearly $700 million stashed in shell companies once registered in New Zealand and Vanuatu, and the $600,000 armoured car bought by a London-based Nigerian politician using a shell company operating out of Niue.

The latest case involves one time Ireland rich-lister Sean Quinn. After Ireland’s financial meltdown, he found himself owing billions to the former Anglo Irish Bank.

But the Irish media alleges he managed to put millions beyond its reach, and that private investigators have trawled company registers in Australia and New Zealand looking at links with Vanuatu.

Much of the missing money came out of the Ukraine and Russia, where dozens of once New Zealand-registered shell companies operate despite being struck off by the Companies Office.

The way the companies lingered on was a factor in New Zealand being struck off a European Union banking “white list” of trusted jurisdictions, and the London based non-profit Global Witness, says our shells are “a critical link in the corruption supply chain”.

Another entity emerged after the conviction this year of former governor of Nigeria’s oil-rich Delta State, James Ibori. Sentenced to 13 years’ jail for stealing more than $310m from the Government, mansions in England and South Africa were seized, along with a fleet of armoured Range Rovers and Bentleys.

One of the problems in searching the Pacific was that after pressure from New Zealand, Niue closed its register in 2006 and gave the rights to control a tax haven there for 20 years to Mossack Fonseca and Co of Panama City

Source: Story by Michael Field. Fairfax NZ News. 22 July 2012.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/7324020/South-Pacific-a-money-laundering-paradise

May Wang charged with corruption – NZ Herald

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Former Crafar farms bidder May Wang has been charged with corruption in Hong Kong, over business dealings said to have happened here in New Zealand while she was trying to buy the dairy farms.

Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption has charged the bankrupt May Wang with conspiring to bribe officials with two New Zealand properties and money laundering, and has issued a warrant for the arrest of Jack Chen for his role in the scheme.

For full article see: NZ Herald 19 October 2011

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10759961

Promoting moral welfare: reflections on true repentence

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With the constant revelations highlighted in the secular media of scandals (sexual infidelities, corruption, financial frauds, etc.) involving professing “Christian” bishops, priests, ministers, pastors and church workers, we must ask ourselves:

How can those genuinely seeking to promote the “moral welfare” of society based on a Judaeo-Christian spiritual framework, continue to do so with integrity, when so many non-Christians accuse them too of sheer hypocrisy and deceit based on the wrongdoing of others? 

Surely it is important and fair-minded to first ask the necessary question: Are the “Christian” individuals and groups actually exposed for proven immorality and corruption, really Christian at all? And second: Are those non-Christians who so boldly point the accusing finger, free from hypocrisy themselves and are they entitled to ‘throw the first stone’?  

Witness the case of Rev. Jonathan Kirkpatrick, 53, a former Auckland University of Technology (AUT) staff member, who recently admitted defrauding the AUT of more than half a million dollars. [Read more…]

Firms hit by rise in fraud – NZ Herald

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Workplace fraud totalling millions of dollars is hitting firms at a time when they need every cent to climb out of the recession. According to a survey by accountancy firm KPMG, New Zealand’s top companies have been hit hard during the global financial crisis with the average reported fraud doubling in two years. Stephen Bell, KPMG’s national head of forensic practice, said the average cost of fraud at companies that took part in its survey grew from $1.9 million in 2008 to $3.8 million last year. He said the total level of fraud increased from $385 million (2008) to $441 million (2010)…

Grace Haden [who] is a director at Auckland private investigation firm Verisure Investigations says… “Companies must be being ripped off left, right and centre – but New Zealand is portrayed as being so corruption-free that people don’t believe it happens here.”

[Comment:  The Society (SPCS) believes that the myth that the NZ business and work-place environment is corruption-free must be well and truly exposed as a complete falsehood. The injurious nature of white-collar crime such as fraud etc. to the “public good” must be regularly presented so that the rationale for promoting good community standards can be understood as of real benefit to the spiritual and material well-being of society in general].

Report by Steve Hart, a freelance journalist. Tuesday Mar 1, 2011

For full story see: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10709506

NZ’s image tarnished by outcome survey on corruption

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New Zealand may not be the corruption free zone that the world perceives, with a new survey claiming 3.6 per cent of people admit to paying a bribe in the past 12 months.

Commissioned by anti-corruption organisation Transparency International, the survey found 3.6 per cent of New Zealanders said that either they, or someone in their household, had paid a bribe in that time….. Transparency International pointed to recent high profile arrests by the Serious Fraud Office as a sign of increased corruption. NZ’s image tarnished by briberty survey.

NZ’s image tarnished by bribery survey,  By Hamish Rutherford. The Dominion Post. December 10. 2010, p. A5.  [Read more…]