High-profile five fraud victims

Scott MacKenzie. Photo / Doug Sherring

A first-time offender has pleaded guilty to stealing more than $5.6 million from three top sportsmen, two multi-millionaires, a major bank and the IRD.

Property manager Scott Alwyn MacKenzie targeted a group of companies headed by Hanover directors and Rich Listers Eric Watson and Mark Hotchin.

One company within the group is owned by Warriors halfback Stacey Jones and his former team-mates Monty Betham and Awen Guttenbeil.

MacKenzie, aged 29 and with no previous convictions, admitted 10 charges of obtaining by deception in the Auckland District Court on Thursday and was remanded in custody for sentencing.

The charges were laid by the Serious Fraud Office and each carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison.

Betham is not involved in the day-to-day running of the company and was shocked to learn about the case when the Herald on Sunday revealed the charges in May.

"I got a call from Mark when the article came out and he said it was nothing to worry about," he said.

"He was pretty calm on the situation that the matters would be resolved and so I was pretty happy with that coming from him."

But the league star-turned-boxer was happy MacKenzie pleaded guilty. "If you do the crime, you do the time, so to speak. I think you have to be accountable for what you do wrong for whatever you do in life."

According to court documents, MacKenzie worked as a property manager for Hotchin and Watson's Omara Property Group from March 2006 to August last year after providing a false CV.

During that period he started three companies with names similar to businesses already supplying maintenance services to the group.

MacKenzie, who gave a Remuera address to the court, created and submitted invoices for work done by his companies but did not supply the service in return.

He was paid by a number of companies within the group, including AMS Holding Ltd, which is owned by Betham, Guttenbeil and Jones.

Between December 2006 and April last year, MacKenzie bought nine residential and commercial properties using bank loans, eight from the Bank of New Zealand. Six loan applications were forged.

MacKenzie pleaded guilty to creating 129 false invoices and defrauding the Omara group of more than $1.6 million.

He admitted defrauding the BNZ of $3.5m and filing false GST returns to the IRD between July 2007 and March 2008, receiving almost $510,000 in refunds.

The SFO investigated after the Omara group queried a $24,750 invoice from one of MacKenzie's companies.

The bank account was opened in an Auckland branch but Omara believed the company was based in Christchurch.

rebecca.milne@hos.co.nz