Former Ngāi Tahu chair Sir Mark Solomon is amongst a bunch of buyers claiming to have misplaced cash because the Severe Fraud Workplace investigates a pair of Christchurch businesspeople.
The SFO mentioned right this moment it had executed search warrants as a part of an investigation regarding Thomas Alexander Tuira (often called Alex Turia), Aroha Awhinanui Tuira and their firms Ngākau Aroha Investments and Energy to Me Aotearoa Tapui.
The company is searching for data from the general public that could be related to the investigation.
Solomon, who was chair of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu for 18 years, informed Stuff he and family and friends had invested about $2 million in Energy to Me, a web site providing academic e-learning programs, about 18 months in the past.
Archived web sites for Energy to Me describe the operation as based and run by Alex Tuira that offered “profitable methods for private empowerment and monetary literacy” together with in Christchurch faculty Te Pā Ō Rākaihautū.
Tuira, described as a “enterprise and private finance methods,” listed a spread of self-help programmes as his major {qualifications}, together with programs by Tony Robbins, Robert Kiyosaki and Jordan Belfort, aka the Wolf of Wall Road.
Firms Workplace data present there are 34 shareholders in Energy to Me Aotearoa Tapui, together with a 5.31 per cent holding by former Ngai Tahu chief working officer Julian Wilcox and a number of other parcels held by members of the Solomon household.
The SFO operates below two units of investigative powers.
Half 1 of the SFO Act offers that it could act the place the director “has motive to suspect that an investigation into the affairs of any particular person might disclose severe or complicated fraud”.
Half 2 of the SFO Act offers the SFO with extra in depth powers the place: “… the director has affordable grounds to imagine that an offence involving severe or complicated fraud might have been dedicated …”
A quick assertion issued this morning mentioned no additional remark might be made by the SFO whereas the investigation is underway.