NZ Has Never Exercised Governance Over Threats From Trans-National Criminals; Easy To Facilitate Trans-National Crime

All-Of-Government Failure

The governments of the past and present (National and Labour) have focused too much effort in purporting New Zealand to be a country that can easily establish business for offshore interest.

No-Screening

Opening doors for business with links to countries with high levels of corruption requires robust screening and safeguards in place. New Zealand has never had that requirement. If one wished to call themselves “Donald Duck” or “Mickey Mouse”, or whatever name they chose, they were able to register as a Director and establish a corporate veil through New Zealand’s Companies Officer Register. The whole process took no more than 3-working days and cost less than NZD200.

With the ease of establishing a corporate entity without the need for any verification at all, New Zealand became an attractive country for establishing corporate entities. This enabled (and still does) the ease for trans-national criminal networks to establish complex corporate webs.

Lack of Financial Market Oversight

New Zealand has a history of operating with weak oversight systems for monitoring and regulating the financial market participant.

Prior to 2008, New Zealand had no type of financial market registration system. The Government ‘supervisors’, were not only ‘not supervising’, but they had no idea of who the people were in New Zealand’s main cities running the cash bureau exchanges.

Registered Securities Exploitations

New Zealand’s unregulated market extends to the registered securities trading industry. New Zealand’s history shows a lack of any adequate governance in ensuring financial adequacy ‘assurance’ from those companies who wished to raise funds from the public.

Registered securities were what retirees considered Blue Chip and safe bets for some level of gain.

New Zealand’s history shows financial market cowboys exploited the weaknesses in New Zealand’s laws. These financial ‘white-collar’ criminals profited from their crimes - without accountability.

New Zealand Needs to Refocus Targets of Crime

If the current government puts as much effort into investigating white-collar criminals as they do in investigating, ‘patched criminals’, the country would be significantly less in debt, including its infrastructure debt.

The Serious Fraud Office has a history of under-performing. Currently prosecuting at 1% to the rate of complaints received. SFO investigations amount to 1% to 5% of complaints received. At this rate, a trans-national criminal committing serious fraud for the purpose of trafficking firearms has a 95%-99% chance of succeeding without accountability.

Financial crime victims are in the majority vulnerable people who are trusting and naïve. Sadly this accounts to a good portion of retirees.

If New Zealand wants to get serious about reducing crime, it needs to start with a system that is not fractured.

What is New Zealand's Social Suffering from Financial Crime?

The loss of life savings whilst in retirement may not show a physical injury in the same way that a crime arising from a physical assault does, but financial crime impacts heavily upon victims.

If New Zealand’s government is serious about protecting its people, it needs to start showing levels of governance that can stand up to international scrutiny.

Reducing serious financial crime, such as money laundering and distribution of narcotics, requires investment in technology.

Governance Starts with Data Science

Governments that utilise financial crime technology will succeed over governments that rely on manual reporting and analysis systems.

Data science is quickly extending the capability of financial crime investigators to detect anomalies.

Whilst governments twiddle their thumbs determining whether the $1M expense is worth the saving of $1B, financial crime criminals will continue to be leaps ahead.

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