Convicted fraudster Aaron Drever (right) pictured while working as a caterer at a function in Parnell attended by Prime Minister Chris Luxon in March last year. Photo / Alex Burton
A disgraced real estate agent and convicted fraudster has been handed eight more months in prison for deception.
Aaron Carl Drever is already behind bars for insolvency crimes but was sentenced this week to more jail time for concealing income from the Official Assignee while an undischarged bankrupt.
Business Registries Investigations and Compliance team manager Vanessa Cook said Drever’s latest crimes were committed while he was on bail and the deception meant the money he earned as a caterer could not be used to repay his creditors.
“Mr Drever’s offending was premeditated. He was well aware of his obligations as a bankrupt, having been previously charged with offences against the Insolvency Act including concealing property.
“The sentencing [on Monday] reinforces the purpose of the Insolvency Act, which is designed to protect the public from individuals who have been unscrupulous, incompetent or irresponsible in how they have carried on business.”
It has emerged that Drever worked for Auckland catering company Free Range Chef after being paroled following his first prison stint.
While employed between November 13, 2023 and July 1, 2024, he received income of $48,114.94 into his bank account.
“Mr Drever did not disclose the fact of his employment or receipt of this income to the Official Assignee, using it for personal expenditure,” Cook said.
When summoned before the Official Assignee, he said his only income was a state benefit.
He admitted misleading officials by concealing property and appeared for sentencing on Monday in Auckland District Court.
Drever was once a high-flying real estate agent, selling hundreds of Auckland homes and making millions of dollars in commission.
But he lost his licence for misconduct before being jailed in 2022 for stealing more than $100,000 from Auckland Speedway and pocketing nearly $500,000 in a cunning property deal involving Avondale Bowling Club land.
In March this year, he was sent back to jail for 15 months after admitting insolvency charges and impersonating a rich businessman.
The charges related to Drever’s dealings with an Auckland fast food company. He was found to have breached his obligations as an undischarged bankrupt – insolvency restrictions linked to his failed Grocer’s Market venture in 2019.
The Herald revealed last month that the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) had filed fresh insolvency charges against Drever in December last year.
Cook said Drever was bankrupted in June 2019 but continued to set up businesses, controlling and managing them without obtaining approval from the Official Assignee.
An adjudicated bankrupt is forbidden under the Insolvency Act 2006 from managing or controlling businesses because it presumes that bankrupts are more likely to financially mismanage.
Cook said this week’s sentence imposed on Drever signalled the seriousness of his actions in wilfully misleading the Official Assignee in respect of his financial situation, as well as disregarding the obligations imposed on adjudicated bankrupts.
She said Drever’s earlier fraud offending resulted in significant harm to his victims. Some of that offending took place after he’d been adjudicated bankrupt.
In his latest offending, he misled the Official Assignee about his employment situation by making a false statement of affairs by declaring his only income from a state benefit.
He maintained this position when summonsed to appear before the Official Assignee, stating under oath that he wasn’t employed.
When his employment status was queried by his Insolvency Officer, Drever said he intended to do a training course and did not intend to be employed.
In July this year, Drever accepted a sentencing indication of nine months’ imprisonment, to be served cumulatively on top of his current sentence of 15 months.
In May this year, Drever unsuccessfully appealed his 15-month prison sentence, arguing it should be commuted to home detention in recognition of a “savage” assault involving a meat hook he suffered at the hands of another inmate in Northland’s Ngawha Prison.
His lawyer, Shannon Withers, said Drever suffered horrific facial injuries in the November 2022 attack, which occurred as he was preparing food in the prison kitchen.
Withers said Drever was believed to have developed post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the incident and was fearful of suffering further violence after being sent back to jail.
“The appellant describes the sentence and attack as life-altering.”
Quoting Drever, Withers said: “Even now, I have recurring nightmares. I wake up in a cold sweat, remembering the overwhelming sense of vulnerability.”
Withers said the experience Drever had suffered in prison “is one that’s going to have continuing effects on his mental health and wellbeing”.
Sending him back to jail for the bankruptcy offending was “disproportionately severe”.
However, Crown prosecutor Dennis Dow argued prison was the appropriate sentence for Drever’s “calculated” and “cynical” offending, which caused significant harm and occurred while he was on bail for other crimes.
He noted Drever was in segregation.
Judge David Johnstone threw out the appeal, saying Drever’s offending showed his “disregard of the constraints he was under as a bankrupt, and his unwillingness to accept accountability for harm done to others”.
Lane Nichols is Auckland desk editor for the New Zealand Herald with more than 20 years’ experience in the industry.
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