Disgraced real estate Aaron Drever has been jailed again. Photo / Michael Craig
A disgraced real estate agent and convicted fraudster has been jailed for 15 months after admitting insolvency charges and impersonating a rich businessman.
In sentencing Aaron Drever today in Auckland District Court, Judge Evangelos Thomas - who greeted Drever with a “welcome back” as his case was called - told him it was one of the “worst examples of people deliberately circumventing their bankruptcy obligations” he had seen.
Judge Thomas also noted his previous sentencing dates had been “adjourned painfully often”, as Drever entered the dock.
Drever - who initially denied any wrongdoing and vowed to defend the charges at trial - was once one of the country’s most successful realty agents, making millions of dollars in commission.
But he was struck off after racking up a record 12 disciplinary findings and jailed in 2022 for more than two years for stealing $600,000 from Avondale Bowling Club and Auckland Speedway.
Drever was made bankrupt in June 2019 after the collapse of his Grocer’s Market enterprise - after he tried to restart the failed Nosh supermarket brand - and found personally liable for almost $500,000 in debt. Drever was prohibited at that point from managing any sort of business whatsoever.
An MBIE investigation commenced in 2021 relating to Drever’s links to Auckland fast-food chain The Fish and Chippery and the liquidation of rich Australia-based businessman Andrew Phillips’ company The Fish and Chip Co Ltd (FCCL) in May 2021.
MBIE’s Integrity and Enforcement Team (IET) filed six charges against Drever in June 2022 of breaching the Insolvency Act.
These included three charges of obtaining credit while an undischarged bankrupt, two of taking part in the management of a business, and one of failing to file a statement of affairs with the Official Assignee.
An additional and more serious charge of concealing property was later filed - carrying a maximum jail term of seven years - but has now been withdrawn.
The summary of facts says Drever was declared bankrupt after the Official Assignee was notified of claims against him totalling nearly $250,000.
Officials made numerous requests for Drever to provide a statement of financial affairs, but he failed to provide the information, meaning the Official Assignee was unable to properly administer his estate.
“As a result, no payments have been made to creditors.”
In 2022, Drever told the Herald he hadn’t breached bankruptcy obligations, stressing he was not a listed director or shareholder of the companies, and had only been an employee.
The allegations would be “successfully defended”, he said at the time. However, he changed his pleas to guilty in July 2024. He also avoided a charge of concealing the $1.05m sale of his West Auckland house from the Official Assignee.
In reflecting on Drever’s business dealings post his 2019 bankruptcy that had led to his six new charges before the court, Judge Thomas today said: “At no time did you seek the approval that you needed from either the Official Assignee or the High Court. You carried on your merry way”.
“On the 21st of September 2020, Fish and Chip Co Limited was incorporated. That business operated fish and chip retail stores and takeaways in Te Atatū, One Tree Hill, Remuera, Birkenhead, Mission Bay and Grey Lynn,” Thomas said.
“The sole director and shareholder was Mr Andrew Phillips. This was a relationship you had been cultivating for some time. You had been discussing this particular proposal with him for some time prior to the incorporation of the company.
“It was a sham, you ran it. You even signed correspondence as the general manager of that company.
“The agreement was that Mr Phillips would transfer his shareholding to you once your bankruptcy had ended. It was a very deliberate and cynical ploy to defeat the restrictions that you were bound by. Nothing more and nothing less.”
Drever also impersonated Phillips during negotiations over a leased Onehunga store which he could not have obtained while bankrupt.
In sentencing Drever on the six charges today, Judge Thomas said that a pre-sentencing report revealed there had not been sufficient evidence of remorse of rehabilitation for Drever to avoid prison again and obtain home detention as his defence lawyer Vernon Tava was arguing for.
However, Thomas did acknowledge it “was not a particularly pleasant term of imprisonment”.
Drever was attacked by a fellow inmate in November 2022. He suffered horrific facial injuries when he was struck with a metal grille hook, which slashed his face open and exposed his nasal cavity. He was released from prison in September 2023.
“One of our hopes in sending people to prison is that they learn their lesson,” Judge Thomas said.
But he concluded that Drever showed an “extremely disappointing lack of insight and understanding and remorse and self-awareness and honesty. It simply does not demonstrate that prison had the desired effect”.
Judge Thomas said given this, a second prison term has to be the least restrictive outcome.
“You could have in theory been sentenced on all of this at the same time when I sentenced you [in 2022]. Had I done so the result would not have been home detention. It would have been more prison,” Thomas said.
“So it is not an argument for home detention, that the totality principle applies, it is an argument for more prison.
“But arguably it would justify today in the amount of prison I would have otherwise given you to reflect that had you been sentenced on these charges at the time, I would have given you less than what we have been talking about today... Today I am going to give you that benefit, that opportunity, particularly since you are returning to prison.”
Judge Thomas sentenced Drever to 15 months for each of the managing a business while bankrupt charges. For the other charges, Drever was sentenced to six months in prison. But Thomas said all those instances would be served together in one 15-month term.
Drever was also subject to several conditions on his release from prison for six months, including a departmental rehabilitative program, and to not be involved in the handling of money or financial accounts of any personal entity without approval of a probation officer.
Court documents filed last year show Tegal Foods Ltd applied to have Drever declared bankrupt in August 2018.
In December that year, he commissioned a valuation of his Glendene home, which came in at $1.05m.
In February 2019, Drever sold the property for $1.05m to Hepburn Property Holdings Ltd, whose sole director and shareholder was Phillips.
The court documents say Phillips - who financed Drever to buy the Mt Eden grocery business after the Nosh Group’s 2017 receivership - then signed a document with Drever titled “Terms of a resolution” for the Glendene property’s sale.
The document allegedly said Drever owed Phillips $284,000 either personally or through Drever’s Marmalade Trust.
According to the document, $840,000 of the sale proceeds would be used to discharge the property’s mortgage and the remaining $210,000 to discharge Drever’s debt to Phillips.
In addition, Drever or his nominee would have first right to repurchase the property for $1.195m “anytime in the first 24 months from the settlement date”.
Marmalade Trust received $839,675.36 following settlement to discharge the mortgage, court documents say.
A further $2250.76 was allegedly transferred to a Fish & Chippery Glen Eden Ltd bank account. The company’s sole director was Drever’s then-girlfriend, Melissa Wymer-Tisdale.
In late 2022, MBIE charged Drever with concealing his interest in the Glendene property, meaning “the Official Assignee was unable to realise this asset for the benefit of creditors”. The charge was subsequently withdrawn.
Phillips was approached for comment but did not respond.
The summary of facts also says Drever took part in the management or control of two companies while an undischarged bankrupt, and impersonated Phillips during negotiations over a leased Onehunga store.
Following the collapse of Drever’s grocery enterprise, he began emailing Phillips with business proposals about forming companies to own and operate Auckland fish and chip stores, the summary says.
Phillips would be the “sole director and shareholder” of the company. Drever would manage the day-to-day operations on a “sweat equity” basis.
“Mr Phillips would then transfer all or part of his FCCL shares to Mr Drever once his bankruptcy was discharged.”
FCCL was incorporated in September 2020, with Drever allegedly signing off regular emails as the company’s “general manager”, the summary says.
Another company, FC Te Atatū Ltd (FCTA) was incorporated in 2019, with Wymer-Tisdale the sole director. A trustee company of Drever’s Marmalade trust was a minor shareholder.
FCTA was formed to help Drever secure a Te Atatū store’s lease, with Phillips loaning Drever money to facilitate the transaction, the summary says.
FCTA also purchased a fish and chip business in Birkenhead. Drever’s phone number was the purchaser’s listed contact. He and Phillips exchanged emails about the sale.
Meanwhile, in March 2020, a property manager visited a leased Onehunga store where she met a person calling himself “Andy Phillips”, who identified himself as the person responsible for the sublease and renovations.
Following negotiations with “Andy Phillips”, a lease reassignment was signed by Wymer-Tisdale, and witnessed by Drever, the summary says.
After receiving numerous invoices for unauthorised works, the property manager “discovered that ‘Andy Phillips’ was in fact Mr Drever”.
Drever was also charged with three counts of obtaining credit totalling nearly $30,000 after entering into contracts for digital signs.
The Herald earlier reported that Phillips liquidated his company after ploughing more than $100,000 into the business.
He told liquidators he thought he was buying three Fish and Chippery companies and claimed the deal had been arranged by Drever.
However, it later emerged the sale and purchase agreement was drawn up but never properly executed.
Liquidator Gareth Hoole earlier told the Herald up to 50% of takings he tracked appeared to have been spent on purposes other than company expenditure.
In a final liquidator’s report in December 2022, Hoole wrote: ‘It is the view of the liquidators that the company and its director were the victim of an elaborate scheme perpetrated by an individual who gained the confidence of the director of the company and took advantage of his good nature and generosity.
“At the time of preparation of this report that individual was incarcerated on fraud charges unrelated to this company.”
Just $16,000 in assets was realised during the liquidation. The company has now been removed.
Lane Nichols is deputy head of news and a senior journalist for the New Zealand Herald with more than 20 years’ experience in the industry.
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