Moscow made a DNA database search request in 2016 to help catch a serial killer. Photo / Bloomberg
Moscow made a DNA database search request in 2016 to help catch a serial killer. Photo / Bloomberg
New Zealand police were "very keen" to know if a Russian serial killer was lurking in our midst after a DNA request was made from Moscow.
The request was one of at least 38 for DNA searches made to New Zealand police from international law enforcement agencies since a law change in 2016, the Herald reported this week.
The New Zealand Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act 1995 was amended in 2016 to allow access to and disclosure of information on the New Zealand DNA database under the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 1992.
The information obtained under the Official Information Act shows the Russian Investigative Committee made a DNA database search request to New Zealand authorities on October 6, 2016 to help catch a serial killer.
The New Zealand Police's National Forensic Services manager John Walker told the Herald that while the DNA search for a Russian killer didn't return a hit, police were "very keen to know if we had a serial Russian killer in our midst".
"If there is a potential connection to New Zealand, we need to know, and we need to know if that person might be in our country," he said.
Further specifics about why Russian authorities believed their killer was in - or had been in - New Zealand remain unclear.
While the Russian search and all but one of the requests have failed to return results, Walker said it shouldn't infer that those fugitives weren't in New Zealand but rather police just didn't have their DNA.
The DNA requests process, Walker explained, come via Interpol bureaus around the world to New Zealand's, located in Wellington.
It details the requesting agency, the nature of the offence, date of offence and the DNA profile from the crime scene.
"Obviously there's not identifying features because they don't know who it is," Walker said.
The majority of requests are for serious crimes - serious sexual assaults, rapes and homicides.
"We tend to filter out some of the fishing," Walker said, explaining some requests are sent to almost every Interpol bureau worldwide.
"What we do notice is that if they haven't gone and sent it to all the Interpol bureaus then there must be a reason why they're thinking of New Zealand."
The DNA profiles are then sent to the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) where a simple "hit, no hit" is recorded.
The results, Walker said, go back through Interpol to the requesting agency informing them of a hit or not.
"What comes back out of that search is a set of numbers ... we don't know who the person is, they don't know who the person is," Walker said.
If there is a hit, the requesting agency will seek the biographical information of that profile. However, before it is released the case is presented to New Zealand's Attorney-General.
According to the amendment in the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act, access to the information requested is authorised only by the Attorney-General and must relate to an offence that corresponds to an offence in New Zealand which is punishable by a prison term of a year or more.
This occurred during the only hit to date, which led to the arrest of Paul Beveridge Maroroa in March.
On November 16 last year the South Australian Police requested a DNA search to help solve the 18-year-old unsolved murder of Robert Peter Sabeckis.
Paul Beveridge Maroroa was arrested for the murder of Robert Sabeckis and extradited to Australia. Photo / Doug Sherring
The 42-year-old was shot dead on January 13, 2000 in a carpark in Maslin Beach, a southern coastal suburb of Adelaide.
The alleged murder weapon, a shotgun, and another firearm were stolen during a break-in at a house just days before Sabeckis was murdered.
The house was then burned down, destroying potential forensic evidence, but DNA believed to belong to the killer was taken from several items.
