False passport used to get $180,000 mortgage

Lawyers are being warned of a false passport scam after a woman used one to take out a $180,000 mortgage on a home that was not hers.

The woman had gone to West Auckland lawyer Don Thomas asking him to act in a mortgage ASB Bank had agreed to give her, Auckland District Law Society magazine Law News reported.

She provided Mr Thomas with a passport, IRD certificate and bank statements to prove she lived at a Mt Albert property in Auckland.

But after the loan was drawn down into various bank accounts, ASB contacted Mr Thomas to raise concerns and he was then unable to find the woman.
She had given only a mobile phone and post office box number as contacts, saying she did not want her family to know what she was doing.

ASB carried out checks and confirmed a false passport had been used as well as a fake IRD certificate.

"There was nothing to alert us to think we should have rung the home phone number to check," Mr Thomas told Law News.

"The banks were taken in just as much as we were."

He said it was quite common for people to ask lawyers not to tell their families what they were doing.

Auckland District Law Society professional standards director Andrew Burger told the magazine Mr Thomas had done everything he should have in the circumstances.

Lawyers were obligated to report suspicious transactions to the police.

- NZPA