White collar crime booming

Gus Andree Wiltens (left) and David Bradshaw (right) left the Serious Fraud Office in November. Gib Beattie (centre) departed well before then. Photo / Herald on Sunday

Five months after the Serious Fraud Office got its death sentence, there is still no word on the future of white collar crime investigation in this country. Meanwhile, the technical specialists that will be needed if a new organisation is to be effective continue to leave the SFO at an alarming rate.

On September 11, Police Minister Annette King said the SFO's functions would be handed over to the police and a new organised crime agency would be established.

In November, Gus Andree Wiltens, one of the SFO's most senior and experienced bosses, resigned and was appointed a Manukau District Court judge. He was the SFO's assistant director for prosecutions and had worked at the office in a prominent role for 11 years.

Now, his talents are consumed by an infant murder trial and deciding whether to grant bail to a man accused of unlawful firearm possession.

Director David Bradshaw, with the SFO for more than 10 years, also left in November, despite offering to stay. And Mark Treleaven, an SFO prosecutor, left in October and went to the Auckland District Law Society.

About a quarter of the SFO's forensic accounting power is about to vanish, according to informed sources. The SFO's website is advertising forensic accountant as a "current vacancy" - a notice that present staff are deriding, asking who will want to work at an office which will soon disappear.

Karen Greenwood, a senior and highly experienced forensic accountant, is about to leave. And Anna Tierney, another top forensic accountant, resigned and will leave soon.

Grant Liddell is the new SFO director and chief executive. The former acting deputy solicitor-general came from Crown Law where he was a team leader and civil litigator. He fiercely defends the SFO and says only Greenwood and Tierney resigned after September.

The others had all made their plans before then.

Asked how many staff had been assured their jobs were secure under the new agency, he said: "That's a matter between us and the police and I would prefer not to comment."

Nor can he say exactly when the SFO will be "disestablished". What he can say is that things remain up in the air.

"There has been some uncertainty for staff associated with the transition to the new organised crime agency, as is to be expected, and this is a factor in the resignations. The primary reasons the staff are leaving are personal and related to new opportunities for them."

He is confident the SFO will attract new staff and said it had just taken on a new investigator and two lawyers would join soon.