Two people have been charged in relation to a Serious Fraud Office investigation alleging they were involved in a $4.1 million Ponzi scheme involving more than 60 investors.<\/p>\n
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced on Tuesday that Thomas Alexander Kokouri Tuira (also known as Alex Tuira) and Aroha Awhinanui Tuira each face 115 charges of obtaining by deception.<\/p>\n
They have pleaded not guilty to all charges and have been remanded on bail. Their next appearance is scheduled for July 20, at Christchurch District Court.<\/p>\n
The SFO said the couple claimed to be experienced investors who managed funds as well as offering financial advice and financial literacy training through their companies Ng\u0101kau Aroha Investments Limited and Power To Me Aotearoa Tapui Ltd.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe SFO alleges that between 2014 and 2021 the defendants exploited their clients\u2019 trust to obtain funds which were not invested legitimately, but instead used to pay other investors in a Ponzi-type scheme or used for personal and business expenses.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SFO announced in November 2021 it had executed search warrants as part of its investigation.<\/p>\n
The agency was seeking information from the public that may be relevant to the investigation.<\/p>\n
Archived websites for Power to Me describe the operation as founded and run by Alex Tuira that provided \u201csuccessful strategies for personal empowerment and financial literacy\u201d including in Christchurch school Te P\u0101 \u014c R\u0101kaihaut\u016b.<\/p>\n
Tuira, described as a \u201cbusiness and personal finance strategies\u201d, listed a range of self-help programmes as his primary qualifications, including courses by Tony Robbins, Robert Kiyosaki and Jordan Belfort, aka the Wolf of Wall Street.<\/p>\n
Companies Office records showed there were 34 shareholders in Power to Me Aotearoa Tapui, including a 5.31 per cent holding by former Ng\u0101i Tahu chief operating officer Julian Wilcox and several parcels held by members of former Ng\u0101i Tahu chair Sir Mark Solomon\u2019s family.<\/p>\n
Two people have been charged in relation to a Serious Fraud Office investigation alleging they were involved in a $4.1 million Ponzi scheme involving more than 60 investors. The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced on Tuesday that Thomas Alexander Kokouri Tuira (also known as Alex Tuira) and Aroha Awhinanui Tuira each face 115 charges of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":4513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,222,174,177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-latest-news","category-nz-news","category-world"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4514,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4512\/revisions\/4514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}