Disgraced Heart of City boss Alex Swney gets five years, seven month jail term

Wednesday 24th June 2015

By Fiona Rotherham

June 24 (BusinessDesk) - The disgraced former chief executive of Auckland’s Heart of the City, Alex Swney, has been sentenced to five years and seven months in jail for tax evasion and defrauding the business group.

The 57-year-old, who admitted to charges laid by the Inland Revenue and the Serious Fraud Office, appeared in the Auckland District Court today.

Swney was the founder and former chief executive of Heart of the City, which promotes businesses in central Auckland. It is funded by property owners and commercial tenants and was set up by Swney in 1995.

Swney was fired last October after the IRD filed four charges over $1.8 million of unpaid tax and a further $1.3 million in penalties and interest.

That led to a Serious Fraud Office investigation into his longstanding involvement with the group and he pleaded guilty to SFO charges under the Crimes Act that he created fictitious invoices which, when submitted, resulted in payments of around $2.5 million into accounts controlled by him.

SFO Director Julie Read said the prosecution demonstrates that this sort of dishonesty will not be tolerated nor go unnoticed.

“Business can only prosper in an environment of integrity, which is why New Zealand’s reputation as a safe place to invest and do business is so important and valuable,” she said.

Inland Revenue group tax counsel Graham Tubb said Kiwis can be confident people like Swney will be caught.

“Swney deliberately tried to cheat the system and not pay his fair share of tax – tax that funds vital services like schools, hospitals and welfare services," Tubb said. “The small minority who try to evade paying tax take every step to hide their actions. Swney was no exception. But thanks to the hard work of Inland Revenue’s investigators, he has been caught. He has not got away with it.”

IRD is seeking to recover the $4.6 million in total from Swney, including the outstanding tax, penalties and interest.

(BusinessDesk)

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