Woman defrauded bank accounts of $200,000

A 29-year-old South Auckland woman is accused of getting hundreds of thousands of dollars by exploiting a loophole in the banks' automatic payments system.

Following a major investigation by bank investigators and the police fraud squad, new procedures are now in place to prevent further scams.

Chantelle Kinikini, of Mangere, was originally facing 42 charges of fraudulent use of a document.

Her trial is set for April next year.

Yesterday in the Auckland District Court she faced a further seven representative charges of dishonestly using a document in relation to fraudulent automatic payment forms.

Kinikini, represented by Peter Kaye and Siobhan Buckley, has yet to enter a plea on the new charges.

The police allege that Kinikini obtained more than $200,000.

The prosecution says that Kinikini got other people, mostly young women, to open bank accounts and set up automatic payments for small amounts of around $50.

She allegedly got others to set up accounts to receive the payments.

According to the police, Kinikini then went on to the internet to change the amounts of the payments to between $1500 and $5000.

The banks treated automatic payments as cleared funds.

Before the banks realised that the automatic payments had been dishonoured, the funds were withdrawn using ATM bank cards.

Fraud squad Detectives James Robson, who was in court for yesterday's hearing, said later: "The banks now have systems in place so that this form of offending can no longer occur."

Kinikini is applying for bail next month.