South African immigrant Carlien Mienie was tired of long, hard days spent calving on a dairy farm near Taupō and wanted a different life.
When long-term friend and fellow South African, Petronella Laatz, known as “Ronel”, offered to sellshares in a business, Mienie thought it could be the fresh start she needed.
Mienie and her husband handed over $164,534 – their life savings.
But Laatz, at that stage, did not own shares in Montevideo Ltd, a business that operated a cafe in Taupō.
Mienie says she did not know that, nor did she realise she could look up the business on the Companies Office, to see who its owners and directors were.
“She told us that she has shares in this business with fellow South Africans that we also know,” Mienie told NZME.
“She just told us how great things are going, and we saw she bought herself a new ... BMW.”
Mienie claims Laatz told them her co-owners were going to leave the business, and “asked us if we want to invest”.
“Because then this will be my last calving on the farm, and she and I can run this business ... I can also dress up nicely, you know? She just drafted this whole picture of these future plans for us.”
Mienie said they “took her word” because they had been friends for “many, many years”.
They were offered 40% shares in the business for $150,000.
“My husband wasn’t very keen to do that, but I kind of convinced him.”
Mienie said they paid the money into Laatz’s private account at her request.
And then Mienies waited. And waited.
A few months later, the Mienies wanted to pursue another opportunity and said they referred to a signed agreement that stipulated any of the parties could give notice they wanted to leave the business, and that the money would be paid back.
But the money never came.
A friend of the Mienies found that at the point Laatz had sold the shares she didn’t actually own any.
“After she received our money, it was about three or four months later, she was registered as a majority shareholder of the business, so we assume she used our money to buy shares in the business.”
Mienie claims Laatz then told them the business wasn’t doing well, she was planning to sell and then would pay them back.
“She did sell the business, and she didn’t pay one cent to us,” Miene said.
Mienie said they had emigrated to New Zealand for a safer life, away from the crime and danger they saw in their home country.
It was particularly hurtful that, having now spent 13 years in New Zealand, they had been targeted by a fellow South African, with whom they had shared a close friendship.
Last month, Laatz was sentenced in the Taupō District Court, having pleaded guilty to a charge of obtaining by deception.
The summary of facts said 55-year-old Laatz contacted the Mienies in May 2023 about the prospect of purchasing 40% shares of her business, Montevideo.
The victims believed she was the sole shareholder, and the purchase of shares was directly from her.
They agreed on a price and paid her $150,000 in payments over three days.
She prepared a Share Purchase Agreement dated May 31, outlining that she, the seller, was the owner of 100% of the shares of Montevideo.
The summary of facts did not state what the true ownership of Montevideo was at that stage, but noted that when spoken to by police, Laatz told them the Mienies “knew she was not a full shareholder”.
The Companies Office register confirmed Laatz was listed as a new shareholder of 74 shares in October 2023.
The summary said the couple gave a further $12,324 in September 2023, to cover “business expenses”, and purchased items including picnic tables and plants, for a further $2210.
In a victim impact statement read in court, Carlien said the offending was not only a “financial crime” but a “profound betrayal of trust”, and Laatz had deliberately used their friendship and “good nature” to gain their trust and “steal [their] money”.
Judge Thomas Ingram endorsed this submission and said: “You took advantage of the trust placed in you by long-standing friends. You have impoverished them.”
“They engaged in the dairy industry and the money that they gave you for a share of the business was the proceeds of an awful lot of hard work over a long period of time.”
He said the net result was that the Mienies were “$164,000 odd out of pocket” and at their age and stage of life, that was “no minor matter”.
“It is a very difficult thing to amass that sort of sum and the only way for them to do that is to engage in physically demanding work, and they are no longer in their first flush of youth.”
However, Judge Ingram noted that Laatz accepted responsibility in pleading guilty and expressing a desire to repay the money.
He made an order that allowed $10,000 to be taken from Laatz’s KiwiSaver, and the remainder would be paid off at $50 per week.
The judge said he accepted “unreservedly” that the offending involved taking advantage of a friendship.
“It is not just a business deal gone bad, it is a whole lot more than that... this is taking advantage of a friendship and trust that had been built up over a number of years and, in my view, it was callous, and in my view, it is well and truly worth a starting point in the order of three and a half years [imprisonment].”
However, the judge said he must give Laatz credit for her plea, for the fact that she was a first-time offender, and for her offer to pay reparation.
Once those discounts were applied, it brought the sentence down to two years’ imprisonment, and within home detention range.
Laatz received an end sentence of 12 months’ home detention.
The Mienies have been left feeling frustrated over the reparation order.
Carlien Mienie told NZME she thought the court process would give them a chance to “get their money back”.
But the repayment of $50 per week seemed “absurd” to her.
“We’re never going to get our money back in our lifetime and we feel it’s so unfair because we’ve worked our whole life for that...”
Laatz was approached by NZME, through her lawyer Alexandra McPherson, but declined to comment.
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.