Pearse was arrested in London about the same time and is on bail pending an extradition application to face charges in the US.
Described as the head of Credit Suisse's "global financing group", Pearse is portrayed by prosecutors as one of the central figures in the case.
Little is known of Pearse's background in finance in New Zealand.
None of the main universities have a record of him graduating.
Inquiries among a handful of New Zealanders with associations with Credit Suisse drew a blank.
"The guy is a bit of a mystery," said one investment banker who did not want to be named. "It is unusual. Seldom do you find in a situation like this where no one in the industry knows of him."
"My suspicion is that he's gone to London at a young age."
According to property records, Pearse shared in the ownership of residential property in Belfast, Christchurch, with a CV of $440,000, and a Merivale home with a 2016 CV of $1.4m.
These have been transferred into the ownership of a company whose title matches his initials - AJP Trustee Services Ltd - and a Nicola Frances Bell. Bell is listed as a director and the sole shareholder of AJP Trustee Services.
Birth and other records indicate that Bell is Pearse's sister. When the Weekend Herald visited the Merivale property a man said Bell did not want to speak about her brother.
Electoral information indicates Pearse's mother lives at the Belfast address. She was not home when the Weekend Herald called.
Pearse was born in Christchurch at St George's Private Hospital in 1969, the second child of Jill and John Pearse.
The couple's first child was born in 1967 and named Nicola Frances Pearse.
The birth certificate of Andrew James Pearse records that he was given the middle name of his father, John James Stedman Pearse. Pearse Snr is listed on the certificate as a clerk who was born in Bombay, India, during World War II.
No occupation is entered for his mother, Jill Fenwick Pearse (nee Stevenson) but she was recorded 11 years later on electoral rolls as "wife".
The father's occupation was still listed at that time as "clerk" and they were living in Hinau St, in the well-to-do suburb of Fendalton near the University of Canterbury.
And then John James Stedman Pearse vanishes from the records. A search could find no record of him in the registers of Christchurch cemeteries.
At some point his son, Andrew James Pearse, left for London and rose to a senior level at one of the world's most prominent banks.
He now stands accused of a rort which when exposed saw the value of Mozambique's currency halve and still threatens to bankrupt a county where half the population are assessed as living in poverty.
He and two bank colleagues are accused of sidestepping the bank's anti-corruption safeguards by withholding information, faking a tender process and using personal email accounts.
Credit Suisse, through which the loans were arranged, was not named as a defendant in the indictment.
Nearly all of the US$2b was paid to a company called Privinvest, which Pearse also began working for, authorities claim.
Privinvest was the sole contractor for the projects.
In April 2013, Pearse opened a bank account in Abu Dhabi into which more than US$45m "bribe and kickback payments" was transferred by Privinvest, according to the indictment filed in New York's Eastern District Court last month.
Despite the allegation of the maritime businesses being a front, fishing boats built in a shipyard owned by Privinvest did arrive in Mozambique but reportedly did virtually no fishing and as of last year did not having fishing licences.
Mozambique authorities have laid charges in the past few days against 18 citizens in relation to the fraud case.
