Shelly Cullen, found guilty in April of promoting pyramid schemes, as she presented herself on YouTube last year.
Shelly Cullen, found guilty in April of promoting pyramid schemes, as she presented herself on YouTube last year.
A woman who described herself as “one of the biggest scammers in New Zealand” is facing fines and penalties totaling more than $5.9 million for promoting pyramid schemes in which tens of thousands of people lost money.
The Commerce Commission said the penalties Shelly Cullen was facing were the largest imposed on an individual under the Fair Trading Act.
Cullen is believed to be overseas. She did not turn up in the North Shore District Court this week for her sentencing on five charges of promoting a pyramid scheme called Lion’s Share.
Judge Anna Skellern sentenced her in her absence to a fine of $600,000 split across the five charges — $110,000 each.
She also ordered an additional penalty under section 40A of the Fair Trading Act 1986 of $5,328,849, representing the court’s estimate of how much Cullen had made from her schemes.
Section 40A allows a court to impose a penalty not exceeding the value of “any commercial gain” gained from illegal activity under the act.
The Commerce Commission, the prosecuting agency, says 150,000 participants worldwide lost almost $17 million in the Lion’s Share scheme.
Commission deputy chairwoman Anne Callinan said it was pleased that Cullen’s significant sentence reflected the level of harm caused by pyramid schemes — 83% of participants in Lion’s Share worldwide lost money.
She noted Judge Skellern had said Cullen’s offending was at “the top of the scale”.
“The commission takes pyramid scheme cases seriously because of the harm they can cause in our communities,” Callinan said.
“Ms Cullen showed a blatant disregard for any consequences of her actions, and so the commission argued for the court to order Ms Cullen pay the value of the commercial gain she made from Lion’s Share, as well as the fine imposed.
“The penalty needed to outweigh what Ms Cullen made through her offending to ensure that the consequences of breaching the Fair Trading Act are enough to discourage her and others from reoffending.”
Callinan said the commission was determined to see this case through, even though Cullen was overseas, so that the public could be warned of the damage her actions had caused.
Cullen promoted the global cryptocurrency-based scheme to Māori and Pasifika communities in New Zealand during 2020-21.
She was convicted on the five Commerce Commission charges in April after a trial before Judge Skellern in the North Shore District Court.
Cullen did not show up for her trial, so it went ahead without her, but comments she had made in a Facebook Live video were viewed by Judge Skellern and quoted in her written decision.
‘One of the biggest scammers in NZ’
“I am going to make history as one of the biggest scammers in New Zealand,” Cullen said in the video posted in January 2021.
“I jump from scam to scam because I can. What’s the consequences? [A] $600,000 slap on the hand.”
The reference to $600,000 matches the maximum fine under the Fair Trading Act for promoting a pyramid scheme, and happened to be the fine imposed upon her.
Shelly Cullen promoted the Lion's Share cryptocurrency trading on Facebook in 2020. The Commerce Commission said 83% of investors lost money.
Since her convictions, the Commerce Commission has alleged Cullen is linked to another bitcoin-based investment being marketed online and within New Zealand.
“Ms Cullen has been promoting a new investment opportunity known as MaVie,” Commerce Commission fair trading general manager Vanessa Horne said.
“The commission is urging communities to exercise caution around this and similar schemes.
NZME’s attempts to obtain comment from Cullen about her dealings have been unsuccessful.
Contact was made with a person using a social media account in Cullen’s name, but questions about her case and penalties were met with requests to support her by making an investment.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of frontline experience as a probation officer.
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