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A clandestine meeting at a public library has resulted in two suitcases full of original Blue Chip documents being handed in to the Serious Fraud Office.
An unidentified man had offered the apparently stolen papers for sale to property consultant Olly Newland, who is acting for victims of the Blue Chip collapse.
The documents - 40 or 50 files in their original folders - reveal that the Blue Chip property investment group was being pressured by Inland Revenue over hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid tax as far back as 2005.
The group did not fall over until early this year, when 22 of its companies were placed in liquidation owing around $84 million.
Newland said that several weeks ago a man calling himself "Paul" made contact by letter, and included samples of the documents and a photo of the pile.
"There was much cloak and dagger stuff and texting backwards and forwards, and it took a week or two to sort out a meeting place," he said.
Eventually he met the man at the Onehunga Public Library. "He produced two small suitcases stuffed full with absolutely original documents, these were not copies." Newland said many of the documents related to huge tax claims against Blue Chip, including demands to enter the group's Queen St premises from the IRD.
He said the claims ran to hundreds of thousands of dollars and dated back over two years. For example, Simnel Ltd - a company associated with Blue Chip founder Mark Bryers - was under pressure to pay a tax bill of $226,806.
"It was all happening long before the whistle was blown."
There were also internal memos, emails, communications from the companies' lawyers, GST returns and lists of properties.
Newland said "Paul" claimed to have come by the documents legally, and asked several times for money to hand them over. Newland refused, and managed to convince him to give the files up to the Serious Fraud Office, which is investigating Blue Chip.
