April 28, 2010

Jail for scam victim who stole $452,000

A judge is hoping the New Zealand police and Interpol are working to catch the Nigerian scamsters who extracted $452,206 from a Canterbury woman.

The 48-year-old woman, Jacqueline Louise de Berri, who suffers from anxiety and depression, has now begun a two year four month jail term for what Judge Fred McElrea described as ?criminal conduct with very serious consequences?.

She admitted using funds from her employer to make 13 transfers to bank accounts in Spain so that she could get millions back that had been left by a supposed cousin who had died.

The cousin was fictitious and the money was immediately transferred from the accounts so that it could not be retrieved. De Berri pleaded guilty in February to 13 charges of dishonestly using documents ? telegraphic transfers.

?I hope the New Zealand police will take steps through Interpol to try to make arrests of those responsible for this scam,? said Judge McElrea at the sentencing today in the Christchurch District Court.

The employer had made a victim impact report to the court saying that it felt betrayed by de Berri who was the credit controller for the rental car firm in Christchurch. Staff who worked alongside her also felt let down.

There was no prospect of reparations and no order was made. The home of de Berri and her husband at Woodend is now being sold by the mortgagee.

Several members of the family were in court to see the sentencing and some left in tears after de Berri was jailed.

Defence counsel David Ruth said de Berri had pleaded guilty early, and had been co-operative and disarmingly frank with the police.

?She looks back now and can not understand how she could possibly have fallen into this,? he said. She was an otherwise intelligent woman who had suffered from anxiety and depressive disorders for many years.

She received a fax at the company offices purporting to be from a Spanish solicitor seeking relatives of an engineer who had died, leaving a fortune for family who had to be traced. She convinced herself the man was a cousin, and began transferring money as requested. The police described it as a Nigerian scam.

Judge McElrea said he had heard the offending was motivated by stress and financial difficulties, as well as depression. ?I suggest there was also a large element of human greed behind it.?

She had now lost her job, and the home was being sold. Although she could offer no reparations she had apologised to the company and was willing to meet officials at a restorative justice conference. She was a victim of the scam herself.