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Uatesoni Filimoehala, 40, claimed money for employees that didn’t work for him.
A fraudster who set up a fake company to claim more than $120,000 of the Covid-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme has been jailed.
Uatesoni Filimoehala, 40, was sentenced to two years imprisonment at the Auckland District Court last week after he created a company to defraud taxpayers of $126,532.
Filimoehala, who was bankrupt at the time, registered 42 Construction Limited with the Companies Office on April 17, 2020 – the same day the policy was announced.
He went on to submit six fraudulent wage subsidy applications for 42 Construction, with the first being submitted hours after the company was registered.
Three of Filimoehala’s applications were successful. He also unsuccessfully applied for a further $42,491.
When the Ministry of Social Development checked Filimoehala’s applications, they found that none of the employees listed in the fraudulent applications worked for 42 Construction.
Some were actually working elsewhere and receiving wage subsidies for that employment.
There was also no evidence to suggest 42 Construction was trading at the time the fraudulent applications were made, according to the Ministry of Social Development.
Judge Robyn von Keisenberg sentenced Filimoehala to 27 months’ imprisonment for four charges of dishonestly taking or using a document.
According to a spokesperson for the Ministry of Social Development, Filimoehala’s prosecution is part of a “substantial continuing work programme aimed at providing assurance that those who received wage subsidy payments were entitled to them”.
To date, 38 people have been brought before the courts for wage subsidy misuse.
