Pair get five years for $14m scam

Two women at the centre of a multi-million dollar get-rich-quick scam have been jailed for five years each.

Lee Papple from Rotorua and Tina West from Australia were sentenced yesterday in Rotorua District Court after they were found guilty last year of defrauding more than 100 people with their "ridiculous" schemes.

Sentencing the pair, Judge James Weir said the enormity of their offending left him no choice but to hand down maximum sentences.

Papple and West fleeced $14.6 million from investors, the court was told.

Some of that money was paid to other investors in what they thought were interest payments.

The total loss of money was $8.3 million but the overall loss was estimated at $24 million, taking into consideration what money would have been made if the money had been invested.

Papple and West ripped off investors between 2000 and 2002.

Their victims included church leaders, Auckland businessmen, a bank manager and policemen.

Investors were lured with promises of high monthly interest rates and security of their principal sums.

According to the Serious Fraud Office, about half the money was used to pay investors supposed interest payments, a quarter was spent on personal items such as jewellery and property, and the rest was invested in "crazy schemes that failed miserably", which had been found on the internet.

During the two years, Papple spent more than $2 million on personal items, despite the fact that before 2000 she and her husband lived in rented accommodation and their only asset was a $50,000 section of Rotorua lakefront. The two-year spree included $1.4 million on building and furnishing a mansion in Rotorua, $260,000 on living expenses, $186,000 on travel and accommodation, $102,000 on jewellery and art and $280,000 on a house for her son.

It was not known what West spent her takings on because she put most of the money in Australian bank accounts, which the Serious Fraud Office cannot access.

The jury could not decide whether Bill Papple, Papple's husband, was involved in the schemes. He is to stand trial again this year.

- NZPA