Country's worst benefit fraudster to fight for $3 Apple shares

Convicted faudster Wayne Patterson. Photo / Paul Estcourt

A man convicted of the country's largest benefit fraud was granted legal aid in Austria to fight for a claim to more than $3 million worth of Apple shares.

Wayne Patterson, 56, lost his fight against the Crown in an Austrian court on October 30 for a claim to cash and Apple shares held in a account at Valartis Bank Vienna, formerly the Anglo Irish Bank, which have increased in value to $3.3 million.

A judgement from the Vienna Court of First Instance stated that the Crown was successful in its claim for the contents of the bank account against Patterson and Westgate Holdings Ltd - a company based in Seychelles Patterson set up to hold the shares.

The court also granted Patterson and Westgate legal aid - paid for by Austrian taxpayers - and awarded the Crown almost $80,000 in legal costs.

Patterson has until the end of this month to appeal the court's decision.

He is currently serving a sentence of eight years, nine months' imprisonment after using 123 identities to illegally claim $3.4 million in benefits between 2003 and 2006. He is due to be freed on July 27 next year.

However, he is due to appear again before a judge at the Whanganui District Court in June following allegations he forged letters to the Parole Board supporting his early release.

When a search warrant was executed at Patterson's rented West Auckland home in 2006, investigators found an office containing a sophisticated computer system to track the numerous bank accounts, $355,000 worth of gold ingots, $685,000 of cash hidden in the garden and another $185,000 in the house and his car.

Also found were 137 automatic teller machine access cards, 125 Inland Revenue cards, 102 forged birth certificates, 79 superannuation cards, 56 community service cards and a range of disguises.

By 2011, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) had recovered $5.5 million from Patterson's offending - a profit of $2.1m - prompting him to write to The Dominion Post from Whanganui Prison angry that he had been forced to pay the Government more than his original theft.

He described the Government's recovery efforts as "legalised theft", which prompted the then MSD chief executive Peter Hughes to say that any expectation Patterson should profit from his crimes was "as appalling as it is outrageous".

"Instead of whining from his prison cell, he might wish to give a little more thought to the rights of the taxpayers he stole from," Mr Hughes said.