Pair hacked into bank account in $35,000 scam

Two young men who siphoned nearly $35,000 from a Timaru businessman's bank account after hacking into his computer have been ordered to do 130 hours' community work.

Dimitri Nemkine, 20, of West Harbour, Auckland, and V'Yacheslav Mayats'kyy, 18, of central Auckland, were also ordered to repay an outstanding $6980 between them to two banks caught up in the scam. The pair pleaded guilty to one charge of accessing a computer for dishonest purpose and three of deception.

According to the police at the Auckland District Court this week, the two obtained access to the businessman's BNZ bank account username and password and then used the codes to access his account via the Internet.

They used the money to purchase laptop computers, watches and diamond rings worth $34,243 from Trade Me.

When the businessman complained to the BNZ, the bank reversed all the money transfers, leaving the sellers out of pocket. Some of the items were recovered but others, notably two laptop computers, were not.

Jo Scott, representing Nemkine, said that it was ironic his family emigrated from Russia to escape the high crime rate, only for her client to offend in this country. She said he became involved in the offending because he thought he owed a debt as a result of innocently being used as a "mule" for an illegal money transfer.

He had dropped out of his information technology studies at Auckland University of Technology to make reparation over the Trade Me offence.

Steve Cullen, for Mayats'kyy, also Russian and a student, said that his client was a young man who made a stupid decision. He was not a New Zealand citizen, and there would be "ramifications" as a result of his conviction.

Mr Cullen and Ms Scott successfully opposed a police application to forfeit and destroy their clients' computers.

- NZPA