Crims grab $500,000 from firm

An inside job planned by a master criminal saw $500,000 taken from a clothing company using stolen online banking passwords and forged passports.

Three people were convicted of carefully executed frauds against Charles Parsons Textiles and its customers over a four-month period ending in February 2007.

They are due to be sentenced in the Auckland District Court on Friday but their names have been suppressed. According to court documents, the offending began after a woman got a job at the company's Auckland branch as a credit controller. Two months after starting, she let her partner-in-crime into the building after work.

The man - an IT consultant aged 40 - was captured on CCTV photocopying an exercise book belonging to the financial controller in which the company's passwords were recorded.

CCTV footage from the days that followed showed the man entering the building and using the financial controller's computer to access company bank accounts.

Over one weekend in October 2006, he transferred more than $600,000 to a series of false accounts set up by the third member of the team, a 39-year-old man regarded in underworld circles as a criminal genius with links to high-profile crimes. The transfers were disguised as payments to courier company DHL.

Instead, the money went into the false accounts the 39-year-old set up at Kiwibank branches using forged passports and forged insurance certificates as proof of identity.

Staff at Charles Parsons Textiles arrived at work on Monday to find the cable carrying their internet connection had been severed.

It appeared to be a contractor's accident - but police later found it was deliberate. The result meant a three-day delay in financial staff discovering the payments.

The company fired the "inside woman" after an inquiry, although it struggled to link her to the theft directly.

Authorities tracked the thefts and moved to freeze some of the money in the false accounts. The trio were interviewed by police - and then continued with their spree.

The men used the former employee's knowledge of the company to burgle the building, stealing customers' credit card receipts from a place known to staff members.

The pair then ordered eftpos machines in the name of Gray Services Ltd - a company that didn't exist - and ran almost $200,000 worth of payments through it.

The scam was repeated a few weeks later, with more invoices stolen. Again, an eftpos machine was bought in the name of a fake company - Herald Jewellery Ltd. The money was transferred into Kiwibank accounts created with forged passports.

Charles Parsons Textiles financial controller Ian Moorhouse said he was astounded to discover the woman he hired was a criminal plant.

"I regard myself as a good judge of character. She was a pro - you do feel betrayed."

The discovery that money was missing made him "sick to the stomach". The company's security has been tightened.

david.fisher@hos.co.nz