‘Mule’ who received distraught dad’s stolen $330k allegedly linked to six victims and $1.25m in losses

Borja Ares and Alfiya Laxmidhar have lost $330,000 in an elaborate Citibank-branded investment scheme. Photo / Michael Cunningham

A distraught father who lost his family’s $330,000 life savings to scammers says police have identified a “mule” who received the stolen money and believe the man is linked to five other victims who lost a combined $1.25 million.

Spanish-born Kiwi resident Borja Ares, 37, has been told just $19,000 of his family’s huge financial loss has been recovered.

He understands his money was paid into an ASB account controlled by a North Island resident, and then wired to accounts in Singapore, Belgium and the UK. The mule is likely to face money laundering charges.

And despite police having compelling evidence about the prime suspect, they are yet to make an arrest, telling Ares they are waiting to interview several other victims, some of whom have yet to learn they’d been scammed.

Ares told the Herald he didn’t understand the delay and feared the mule could be receiving more stolen money through online banking transfers, exposing other potential victims to fraud.

“Maybe he’s still opening new accounts and laundering money.

“I was shocked that a person can just receive large amounts of money and send it overseas and no red flags were raised.

“Why wasn’t something done to stop this guy?”

Ares was duped after searching online for investment opportunities after he and his wife sold their Whangarei house in May.

He found a website comparing term deposits and was then contacted by a man called Simon David claiming to be a broker for Citibank.

Within days the man convinced Ares to wire $330,000 on the pretext he was investing in Yorkshire Building Society bonds paying 13.5 per cent interest.

Ares said he was devastated by the loss and felt he’d failed his wife and two young children.

“He got me in his net from the first second. It was like something emotional was activated in me. I don’t know how he manipulated me to trust him in this way.”

A week later Ares realised he’d been scammed and alerted BNZ and police.

ASB froze the recipient account and attempted to recall several offshore payments.

However, an email last week from BNZ informed Ares that only $19,487.40 of his money was recoverable, which the bank described as “far from an ideal” amount.

Following a complaint from Ares that BNZ should have been alert to the known scam after he told staff he was investing with Citibank, BNZ said it was still considering whether to cover any of the loss.

But Ares expects his compensation request to be declined because he authorised the money transfer.

He believed the bank wouldn’t take any responsibility.

Police served ASB with a court production order to obtain details about the recipient account.

They told Ares they had identified the “mule”, with associated losses of $1.25m.

“[Police said] there are six victims in total and I’m the last one.

“Once all the victims have filed a complaint [police] will send the file to Whanganui. They said it might take two weeks or two months because they are busy with other things.”

A financial crime unit investigator told Ares staff were inundated by cases, with thousands of scam victims already this year.

Police also told him money mules were “stupid people” who often claimed to be employed by finance companies to move money overseas, receiving a percentage commission for each transfer.

However, police believed there may have been “criminal intent” in this case and intended to charge the Whanganui man, Ares said.

A trial could be years away and police had warned him not to expect much in the way of reparation.

Scammers are estimated to be draining $200 million from Kiwi victims each year.

His wife was now off work due to panic attacks and Ares was trying to remain strong for his family.

He was “absolutely gutted” that only a tiny portion of the stolen money had been recovered.

“It’s my livelihood, it’s my children’s lives.”

A givealittle page for the family has raised nearly $9000.

Massey University banking expert Associate Professor Claire Matthews said, in her view, if Ares told BNZ the money was going to Citibank “that should have put them on alert” given prior warnings about the scam.

The fact the supposed Citibank investment funds were being transferred to ASB should also have raised questions, she said.

“There were red flags that they didn’t act on apparently. But fundamentally it was him making a decision.

“Yes BNZ could have asked some more questions, but it wouldn’t necessarily have stopped it happening.”

A police spokeswoman declined to answer specific questions about the case due to “operational sensitivities and not compromising the ongoing investigation”.

She said police were promoting awareness about scams and had made several recent arrests in high-profile cases.

A BNZ spokeswoman said Ares engaged with a scammer during an online search for financial services. A fund recovery process was launched immediately after he alerted BNZ.

Investigations into complex scam cases could be lengthy and it would be premature to comment on any potential outcomes at this time.

ASB said when the bank suspected a customer may be a mule, it would freeze their account while the matter was investigated. It could also close the person’s accounts if ASB suspected they were complicit in the fraud.

After being alerted to Ares’ situation, ASB froze the recipient account to secure any remaining money and sought the return of money from the receiving overseas banks.

“We’re following up regularly with these banks, but unfortunately, once the money has left ASB we have very limited control. We appreciate this has been a devastating experience for Mr Ares and we continue to support police fully with their investigation.”