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A former Far North car salesman who took more than $500,000 from investors in a bogus vehicle importing scheme has been jailed for 3 1/2 years on 27 fraud and forgery charges.
Robert Guy Morris, 61, of Hukatere, north of Kaitaia, a former employee of a Kaitaia car dealership, had "lied cunningly" to investors and betrayed their trust, according to victim impact reports read to the Whangarei District Court yesterday.
"Emotional trauma cuts me to the core. I wasn't blessed, I was cheated," one investor said.
Morris offered some investors a return of $1000 every six weeks for every $10,000 they gave him.
Investors' money was supposed to be used to buy imported vehicles which would then be on-sold at a profit. But the Serious Fraud Office, which brought the prosecution, said Morris did not import any vehicles into New Zealand on his own behalf during the two years he solicited investments between January 2003 and January 2005, and he did not have a licence to import vehicles.
Morris took $725,850 from 22 investors and paid back $190,310.
There is little chance any of the money still owed to investors will be repaid, even though Morris' home was sold by mortgagee auction last week above its reserve price.
Sentencing Morris yesterday, Judge Keith de Ridder said: "There is nothing in front of me to indicate money will be repaid."
Earlier guilty pleas by Morris to the 27 charges had avoided the cost of a trial and spared embarrassed victims from having to come to court to give evidence, the judge said.
