An Auckland accountant made fraudulent applications on behalf of several companies in an attempt to defraud the Covid-19 wage subsidy scheme, a court has found.
Brett William Knock was sentenced in the Auckland District Court on Tuesday to eight months' detention. He had earlier admitted to 10 charges of dishonestly taking or using a document.
Between March 28 and May 8, 2020 he had submitted 12 fraudulent wage subsidy applications to the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), eight of which were successful, paying $40,629.60 in total.
The four unsuccessful applications were worth a further $28,000.
Earlier this month, 1News revealed 39 people have been brought before the courts in relation to more than $3 million in payments from the Covid-19 wage subsidy scheme, whilst civil recovery action is being taken against 40 businesses.
According to the court summary of facts, Knock provided accounting services for various companies and individuals, including filing tax and GST returns with Inland Revenue.
Nine of the applications were made on behalf of companies in which Knock had, or claimed to have, an interest. The other three were for companies controlled by others.
All 12 applications listed Knock as the contact person and nominated the same bank account. None of the directors and shareholders of these companies ever received any wage subsidy funds from him.
When interviewed by MSD, Knock said he had obtained verbal instructions from his clients to apply for wage subsidies on their behalf, although he admitted he did not check if his clients were eligible before applying.
He eventually repaid $36,429.60 of the $40,629.60 in wage subsidy funds he received from MSD.
To date, almost 25,000 wage subsidy payments — totalling over $820 million — have been returned to the Government, who have 50 full-time staff working on cases of wage subsidy fraud.
Eleven cases of "significant and complex fraud" have been referred to the Serious Fraud Office so far, with 900 investigations still underway.
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