Police find $150,000 boat hidden by fraudster

Michael Swann provides the latest example of concealed assets from proceeds of $15m fraud. Photo / Otago Daily Times

The Crown is seeking around $10 million in assets from convicted fraudster Michael Swann, and detailed at the High Court yesterday a litany of obstructions.

When Swann was sentenced, allowance was made for his help in recovering property bought with proceeds of his $16.9 million fraud against his former employer, the Otago District Health Board.

But on the same day he was sentenced - March 11 last year - police found a $150,000 boat which had been hidden in a farm shed at Haast, about the time of Swann's trial a few months earlier.

The Rinker Captiva was being towed at Hawea by a man who said an associate of Swann had offered him $250 to collect the boat from Haast and bring it back to Dunedin.

Crown counsel Marie Grills cited various examples of how Swann, rather than helping authorities find proceeds of the offending, had actively tried to conceal them.

The most recent was last month when police found a 1998 Mercedes Benz, previously unknown in the inquiry, hidden at the address of one of Swann's associates. In an affidavit dated March 28, this year, Swann had said "I can definitely say that there is nothing by way of hidden or missing property".

Mrs Grills said it had been established Swann bought the vehicle from Armstrong Prestige for $19,200 in November 2008, just before his trial started.

Serious Fraud Office investigations, which brought Swann and co-offender Kerry Harford to trial, established Swann spent just under $8 million of his $15 million share of the proceeds on cars and boats, $3.7 million on real estate, a little over $1 million on food, liquor and household items, with $1.1 million being taken in cash.

His assets, as detailed in a High Court document, comprised 12 properties, 21 vehicles, five vessels and five containers of vehicle parts.

At yesterday's hearing, the Crown sought $15.116 million, less property valued at around $4.4 million which is to be forfeited, and minus already-resolved third party claims.

Mrs Grills said that, in a 2007 affidavit in civil proceedings, Swann said a 1969 Mercedes Benz, valued by Turners at $35,000-$50,000, had been wrecked and sold for parts before a restraining order was made. But on March 20 last year, nine days after Swann was sentenced to nine and a half years' jail, the Mercedes was found, intact and in working order, at a Waitati property.

It was subsequently seized and was now held by the Official Assignee.

Also located at the same Waitati property the same day was a 1970 E Type Jaguar, valued at $50,000-$65,000. That vehicle had been described in the civil proceedings affidavit as having been "wrecked and sold for parts".

Justice Panckhurst reserved his decision in the Proceeds of Crime application but said he would be making a pecuniary penalty against Swann. He said he would deal with the case as soon as he could.

He suppressed, in the meantime, details of the resolution of an associated Relationship Property claim, but said he would deal with the question of further publicity when he issued his judgement.

- Otago Daily Times