An Auckland man has been jailed for nearly six years over more than $1.7 million worth of fraud related to Covid-19 relief schemes.
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.
He was sentenced to 5 years and 11 months imprisonment in the Auckland District Court.
Rivers had made 28 wage subsidy applications on behalf of eight companies, with 12 of those applications being fraudulent.
He received $906,818.40 in wage subsidy funds and tried unsuccessfully to get another $724,106.60.
To support the applications, Rivers forged documents and created fake IRD numbers, and also used the personal details of innocent individuals he had obtained as a tax agent.
All money obtained went into bank accounts controlled by Rivers, with large amounts then being transferred to Singaporean bank accounts under the fake name of Lei Zhang, and another under Mai Qu.
The charges were brought by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) and Inland Revenue (IR).
MSD said this was an example of a large-scale fraud which was premeditated, sophisticated, and solely for personal financial gain.
“This case involved wage subsidy fraud, money laundering and the use of forged documents,” said group general manager client service delivery George van Ooyen.
“The volume of fake documents and the repeated nature of the conduct, point to a significant degree of premeditation and sophistication.”
Inland Revenue said Rivers urged forged documents to get IRD numbers for people who had never set foot in New Zealand, let alone worked here during the pandemic.
“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,” said small to medium enterprises customer segment leader Bernadette Newman.
“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.”
