11 November 2024

An Upper Hutt man was sent to jail for nearly four years when he appeared for sentence on fraud charges committed in what the judge called a time of national crisis.

Shane Douglas McNally appeared for sentence on November 8, after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing.

McNally was sentenced on 68 charges, 21 of which were Inland Revenue (IR) charges involving Small Business Cashflow scheme (SBCS) fraud. The other charges were Ministry of Social Development (MSD) fraud charges and police charges.

The IR charges related to McNally and his co-accused, Brendon Blair McBride, who made 21 SBCS applications using different identities each time. Seven of these were accepted and paid out. The remaining 14 were declined. The total amount sought was $224,200, while $82,600 was paid out.

The Small Business Cashflow scheme was set up in 2020 and in May of that year, Inland Revenue started making payments to businesses adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2020, McNally and McBride made the applications under 19 separate identities, each of $11,800 and confirmed each time that they met the scheme’s criteria, including that they had a viable business and had experienced a more than 30% decline in revenue.

Inland Revenue began an investigation in June 2020. It found McNally and McBride had made the applications, were both on the unemployment benefit and neither met the criteria for a SBCS loan.

During the investigation, bank account information, I.P. address records and text messages were obtained for both McNally and McBride.

In sentencing McNally, Judge Hastings noted the exploitation of the high trust SBCS loan in a time of national crisis; premeditation, given the number of fraudulent applications; and the extent of financial gain sought, and loss suffered by IR and MSD.

The result was a sentence of 3 years and 11 months prison.

Co-offender McBride was sentenced in 2021 on SBCS fraud charges and again earlier this year on income tax and police charges. 
 

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