NCJ Number
141408
Date Published
Unknown
Length
18 pages
Annotation
Police agencies in New Zealand have always focused on the investigation of blue collar crimes. With an establishment of 6,500 police officers throughout the country, the police operate only one commercial fraud squad, in Auckland. Today there is a maximum of about 15 sworn police officers available to deal with company fraud; this amounts to .23 percent of the total police establishment.
Abstract
Before the mid-1980's, there was little attention paid to the investigation of serious fraud. While there were two early fraud trials in New Zealand, no real forensic awareness of the phenomenon arose in the country until the 1970's. While the Justice Department created a Commercial Affairs Division in 1972, it had no mandate to bring charges on its own and cases involving suspected criminal activity were generally passed onto the police. Following the notorious JBL case in the mid- 1970's, the police and justice departments began to cooperate on serious commercial fraud. With the increasing realization of the magnitude of, and damaged caused by, white collar crime, the government established the Corporate Fraud Unit (CFU) in 1985. However, lack of funding and resources made the unit's failure in terms of prosecuting criminals inevitable. The government has responded to the inadequacies of the CFU and the need to prosecute vigorously the high level of serious fraud; the New Zealand Serious Fraud Office, set up in 1990, has special powers, is directly answerable to Parliament, and is independent of both the police and the Justice Department. 16 references