Exclusive: Business Pays $4000 For Investigator After Cops Refuse
February 4, 2018 | Fraud
The Investigators managing director Daniel Toresen says police are too under staffed to investigate all financial crime cases quickly.
New Zealand Police are telling financial theft victims to hire private investigators because it's too under-resourced, a private investigator says.
A business owner, who asked not to be named, said he was annoyed when the police told him to pay a private investigator to investigate an ex-employee who allegedly stole thousands of dollars through undeclared cash sales.
The business owner provided police with email correspondence about the alleged embezzlement and spent months "nagging" police to investigate.
Head of the New Zealand Police financial crime group, Detective Sergeant Iain Chapman, says his team is not fobbing off victims or leaving cases idle for years.
Police told the business owner in an email last year that it would not investigate because it did "not have the resources".
"Police suggest that you could enlist the services of a forensic accountant or private investigator," the email said.
Police Minister Stuart Nash says he expects some new police recruits to be specialised in financial and cyber-crime.
A private investigator charged him more than $4000 to investigate the case which remained ongoing.
"Paying another $4000 to get justice does leave a sour taste in your mouth," he said.
"I get that they [police] are under-resourced… But, at the end of the day, they are there to do a job."
The Investigators managing director Daniel Toresen said the police financial crime group (FCG) often left cases uninvestigated for up to a year, and left some investigated cases for up to three years before prosecuting offenders.
"Sadly, they [the FCG] are not as resourced as they should be and the files back up. Sometimes, [cases are] not assigned or not worked on actively because staffing just is not there."
Head of the financial crime group, Detective Sergeant Iain Chapman, said his staff were not fobbing victims off to private investigators, or leaving cases and prosecutions idle for years.
"Police are a finite resource. Cases have to be prioritised. We are not struggling to keep on top of case loads," Chapman said.
"[Although] sometimes there are cases that victims and private investigators feel are solvable without knowing the intricacies of this type of work."
Toresen said almost one quarter of his and his team of five's workload was investigating cyber-crime cases, such as online fraud and financial scams.
Victims wanted their money back, so in many cases, police pushed responsibility back onto victims, he said.
"Police will say you need to hire an investigator or you are facing a long wait. Police need to get more resources to protect people."
Chapman said the FCG had 83 staff in December, 10 short from being fully staffed.
The group is made up of the financial intelligence unit based in Wellington and four regional asset recovery units. Its tasks include detecting and investigating money laundering and terrorist financing.
The group does not deal with fraud cases, Chapman said. Civil investigation branches investigated some fraud cases and the Auckland city district financial crime unit was a 20-person dedicated fraud squad, he said.
Toresen said all of the police units tasked with fighting financial cyber-crime were small and heavily worked.
In the FCG's 2017 workplace survey, 16 per cent of its workers listed staffing resources as the single, most important, thing that needed to change within the police.
The Government aims to recruit an extra 1800 police over the next three years.
Police Minister Stuart Nash anticipated extra financial and cyber-crime specialist staff would be included among the new recruits.
The the majority of policemen and women believed they were under-resourced and overworked. More police would ease that, Nash said.
The FCG received 17 new staff this year, he said.
Police took financial crime seriously, but ultimately, victims wanted their money back.
"Police advise it can be a fine line between criminal and civil cases. The police work to identify and prosecute offenders, and put them before the courts, where cases meet the test known as evidential sufficiency."
Chapman said Nash had promised him that extra recruits would include more staff for the FCG to fight organised, profit-making crime.
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- Article originally on stuff.co.nz.
