High-flier flees to Australia

Hussain and Cameron.

A young high-flier at the centre of an alleged multi-million dollar bank mortgage fraud sold his house and is believed to have fled to Australia.

The Employment Relations Authority this week released its decision on a case brought by ANZ National Bank against Zamir Hussain, 31.

The bank told the Authority the mobile mortgage manager had authorised more than a dozen over-inflated mortgages between May and July 2007 - costing the bank more than $3.5 million.

Hussain, also known as Zamir Zan, grew up in Papatoetoe. Photos show Hussain posing in a Brisbane Broncos rugby league shirt with heavyweight boxer Shane Cameron. Until recently, he was a familiar face at gyms around Auckland.

The Authority was told he earned his salary plus $10,000 a month in commissions on the suspect mortgages.

In its evidence, the bank accused Hussain of being party to "property price hydraulic fraud" by relying on altered and inflated valuations to approve mortgage loans far in excess of the secured property's value.

Authority member Robin Arthur said any reasonable person who had bought or sold a house would have "noticed something amiss" about the valuation documents.

Arthur's findings reveal the irregularities came to light only when borrowers failed to meet the mortgage payments.

"Meanwhile, the perpetrator had disappeared with the money that was the difference between the genuine valuation and the fraudulently inflated value of the property."

In one example, $790,000 was lent to buy a property with a government valuation of $415,000. After a mortgagee sale the bank lost $423,000.

Hussain did not defend himself at the investigation and Arthur said "no good cause was shown for his absence". He found Hussain had breached his duty to apply bank credit risk policy in 18 transactions and fined him $54,000.

Arthur said Hussain was believed to be living in Queensland and invited the bank to apply for global damages when it had totalled its losses.

The Authority heard the bank had insurance to deal with losses incurred in such cases, but a claim required a criminal conviction for fraud and had a $1m excess.

The findings say the Serious Fraud Office is investigating the case.

An ANZ National spokeswoman was reluctant to comment because action was ongoing.

"We are constantly reviewing our systems and processes to ensure we have adequate protections in place for both our customers and shareholders," she noted.

A month after resigning from the bank in 2007, he started ZH Financial Services Limited.

At the Mangere address listed with the Companies Office for ZH Financial, the residents said they bought the house from Hussain in May 2008.

Iosefa Afioga said he paid $465,000 for the property when it had a rating value of $370,000.

Hussain had offered to help with financing but Afioga declined: "We used our local bank, because I think all this financial services stuff is bullshit."

The police came calling two weeks after the purchase.

- ADDITIONAL REPORTING: JOSEPH BARRATT