A Balclutha livestock agent has been sentenced to 12 months home detention for fraudulent activity, including selling stock that didn't exsist.
File image. Photo: RNZ / Nicola Grigg
While working for Rural Livestock Limited, John Francis Williams, defrauded his employer as well as his clients by submitting false sale notes related to livestock sales and leasing agreements.
The offending resulted in the company losing approximatley $1.3 million.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said at times the 40-year-old presented himself as the vendor of animals he did not own and sold stock which did not exist.
When errors were detected he used further false sale notes or gaps in the livestock transport, identification, tracing and management systems to disguise his offending.
The SFO charged him with two counts of false accounting to which he pleaded guilty to.
Williams was sentenced to 12 months home detention in the Dunedin High Court this morning.
SFO director Julie Read said Williams took advantage of the livestock industry's traditional relationship-based trading practises for his own gain.
"By exploiting vulnerabilities in the system, he abused the trust placed in him by his employer and the farmers he worked with."
