The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said it was “very pleased” when on March 12 2009 the two perpetrators of the largest fraud ever carried out by a state employee against a New Zealand government institution – the vulnerable Otago District Hospital Board (ODH) – were sentenced in the Dunedin High Court to lengthy prison terms. Both had been convicted by jury trial on 5 December 2008 of criminal intent to defraud the ODHB of $16.9 million using false documents.

The SFO described the $15.2 million fraud committed by the primary offender, former bankrupt Michael Andrew Swann, as the largest ever successfully prosecuted involving an individual person. Swann was sentenced to nine and a half years jail and his accomplice Kerry Gray Harford, to four years three months jail. [Read more…]