Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand | |
---|---|
Agency overview | |
Formed | 1 July 2008 |
Preceding agency |
|
Jurisdictional structure | |
National agency | New Zealand |
Operations jurisdiction | New Zealand |
Governing body | New Zealand Government |
Operational structure | |
Headquarters | Wellington, New Zealand |
Agency executives |
|
Website | |
http://www.ofcanz.govt.nz/ |
The Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand (OFCANZ), generally referred to as the Organised Crime Agency, is an agency hosted within the New Zealand Police. The agency's stated objective is to "disrupt and combat organised crime". The agency has been recently renamed the National Organised Crime Group [1] (2018) however the objective remains as stated.
The Fifth Labour Government in 2007 announced the intention to create the agency, saying it would replace the Serious Fraud Office. [2] [3] OFCANZ was formed on 1 July 2008 (though in December 2008, the new National Prime Minister John Key said that the Serious Fraud Office would not be abolished). [4]
The agency led its first raid on 28 October 2009, serving search warrants on members of the Tribesmen Motorcycle Club in Northland. [5]
Dame Vera Baird is a British barrister and politician who has held roles as a government minister, police and crime commissioner, and Victims' Commissioner for England and Wales.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is a non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom that investigates and prosecutes serious or complex fraud and corruption in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The SFO is accountable to the Attorney General for England and Wales, and was established by the Criminal Justice Act 1987, an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) was a non-departmental public body of the Government of the United Kingdom which existed from 1 April 2006 until 7 October 2013. SOCA was a national law enforcement agency with Home Office sponsorship, established as a body corporate under Section 1 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. It operated within the United Kingdom and collaborated with many foreign law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Europol, officially the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, is the law enforcement agency of the European Union (EU). Established in 1998, it is based in The Hague, Netherlands, and serves as the central hub for coordinating criminal intelligence and supporting the EU's member states in their efforts to combat various forms of serious and organized crime, as well as terrorism.
Al Yamamah is the name of a series of record arms sales by the United Kingdom to Saudi Arabia, paid for by the delivery of up to 600,000 barrels (95,000 m3) of crude oil per day to the British government. The prime contractor has been BAE Systems and its predecessor British Aerospace. The first sales occurred in September 1985 and the most recent contract for 72 Eurofighter Typhoon multirole fighters was signed in August 2006.
The Specialist, Organised & Economic Crime Command is a unit within the Gangs and Organised Crime group of Specialist Crime & Operations within London's Metropolitan Police Service. The unit's main responsibility is to both investigate and take steps to prevent fraud, along with a wide range of other fraudulent crimes which require specialist knowledge and training to investigate. The unit was previously known as the Fraud Squad, or by its previous Specialist Operations designation, SO6.
The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) is a UK-based campaigning organisation working towards the abolition of the international arms trade. It was founded in 1974 by a coalition of peace groups. It has been involved in several high-profile campaigns, including a legal challenge against the Serious Fraud Office's decision to suspend a corruption investigation into BAE Systems in 2007. On 27 September 2012, it was honoured with a Right Livelihood Award for its "innovative and effective campaigning".
The Serious Fraud Office is the public service department of New Zealand charged with detecting, investigating and prosecuting financial crimes, including corruption, of a serious and complex nature.
The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom, established to support police by providing expertise in such areas as information technology, information sharing, and recruitment.
A fraud squad is a police department which investigates fraud and other economic crimes, the largest of which in the United Kingdom is run by the City of London Police.
Crime in New Zealand encompasses criminal law, crime statistics, the nature and characteristics of crime, sentencing, punishment, and public perceptions of crime. New Zealand criminal law has its origins in English criminal law, which was codified into statute by the New Zealand parliament in 1893. Although New Zealand remains a common law jurisdiction, all criminal offences and their penalties are codified in New Zealand statutes.
The area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ) of the European Union (EU) is a policy domain concerning home affairs and migration, justice as well as fundamental rights, developed to address the challenges posed to internal security by collateral effects of the free movement of people and goods in the absence of border controls or customs inspection throughout the Schengen Area, as well as to safeguard adherence to the common European values through ensuring that the fundamental rights of people are respected across the EU.
Allan James Hubbard was a businessman who lived in Timaru in the South Island of New Zealand, and was the founder of South Canterbury Finance, New Zealand's largest locally owned finance company. In 2006, the New Zealand Listener described Hubbard as the most powerful businessman in the South Island.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) is a national law enforcement agency in the United Kingdom. It is the UK's lead agency against organised crime; human, weapon and drug trafficking; cybercrime; and economic crime that goes across regional and international borders, but it can be tasked to investigate any crime. The NCA has a strategic role as part of which it looks at serious crime in aggregate across the UK, especially analysing how organised criminals are operating and how they can be disrupted. To do this, it works closely with regional organised crime units (ROCUs), local police forces, and other government departments and agencies.
Jami-Lee Matenga Ross is a New Zealand businessman and former politician. He was the Member of Parliament for Botany from a by-election in March 2011 until he lost his re-election bid at the 2020 general election.
Vincent Tchenguiz is an Iranian-British entrepreneur born in Tehran. Robert Tchenguiz is his younger brother. Tchenguiz is known as a major donor to the Conservative Party (UK) and an investor in the controversial company SCL Group, known for the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal involving its subsidiary.
This article discusses the responsibilities of the various agencies involved in combating corruption in New Zealand. New Zealand is regarded as having one of the lowest levels of corruption in the world.
Between May 2006 and the end of 2012 there were sixty-seven finance company collapses in New Zealand; including companies entering into liquidation, receivership or moratoria. An inquiry by the New Zealand Parliament estimated losses at over $3 billion that affected between 150,000 and 200,000 depositors. The most high-profile collapses were South Canterbury Finance, Hanover Finance and Bridgecorp Holdings. The collapse radically reduced the size and importance of the non-bank finance sector in New Zealand. According to the Reserve Bank, at the height of financial expansion prior to the 2007 crisis, non-bank lenders had assets of about $25 billion and made up 8 percent of lending by financial institutions. By late 2013 the size of the finance sector was half its previous size and accounted for only 3 percent of institutional lending. In the years following the beginning of the collapses, sweeping legislative and regulatory changes were made, aimed at improving oversight and regulation of the finance industry.
Unaoil is a Monaco based company which provides "industrial solutions to the energy sector in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa." Unaoil is incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven with an opaque banking system.
Thompson & Clark Investigations Ltd, known as Thompson and Clark or TCIL is a New Zealand private investigation agency founded in 2003 by principals Nicolas Guy 'Nick' Thompson and Gavin Shane Clark. The company has been involved in repeated scandals over spying on environmentalist and activist groups, often on behalf of government agencies and state-owned enterprises. In December 2018 after a scandal involving spying for government agencies the company was removed as a preferred supplier by the New Zealand Government.