Aucklander Luke Daniel Rivers (also known as Mai Qu), has been sentenced to nearly six years in prison for defrauding $1.7 million from Covid-19 relief schemes.
Rivers pleaded guilty to 29 charges including wage subsidy and small business loan fraud, as well as money laundering.
Authorities say he used forged documents, false identities, and insider knowledge as an accountant to exploit the high-trust schemes for personal gain.
Inland Revenue and the Ministry of Social Development described his actions as calculated and deceitful, with investigations and prosecutions of similar fraud cases still ongoing.
Image credit: Towfiqu Barbhuiya
The scheme was always utterly corruptible. Designed by corrupt politicians, and readily abusable by the unscrupulous. This guy just cooked it too long.
Yeah, beware any “high-trust schemes” involving taxpayer money being promoted by members of the masonic lodge, I mean parliament.
Exactly, “high-trust” schemes involving Government, well it’s oxymoronic.
Only 6 years?
You get 10 for robbing a petrol station for a few dollars 🤔