Gareth Vaughan

Yeah, so the Department of Internal Affairs was their supervisor under anti-money laundering, countering financing terrorism laws.

And they did two on-site inspections.

And so they did one in 2015 when the firm was relatively new, and then they did a second one in 2018 at the height of, I would say, at the height of WorldClear's operations in March 2018.

And the report found WorldClear not to be in compliance with several aspects of anti-money laundering rules.

So, you know, David Hillary has heavily contested this report, which we have reported in our story.

And, you know, I'd sort of suggest anyone who wants to know more about the ins and outs of the report and David Hillary's response and then the DIA's subsequent response, read that story.

But, yeah, they did say they were non-compliant in a series of areas.

So we shared some of the data with a couple of local experts.

So one was Fiona Hall, who's a barrister who specialises in anti-money laundering legislation, and Martin Dilley, who is an anti-money laundering auditor and consultant, both vastly experienced, really top of their professions.

And they were quite gobsmacked with how critical the DIA's report was

So based on the report, they thought there was reason for the DIA to have taken things further.

The DIA didn't, and certainly one of the key reasons, they say, is because WorldClear subsequently was winding down its operations after Richard Whittam got arrested in Singapore, so in the later part of 2018 into 2019.

I think as someone who has covered financial journalism for a long time, you do get a

The values put on things.

I remember years ago when I worked in London, I was covering what was then the biggest corporate merger of all time.

And it was several hundred billion dollars or whatever it was then.

And there's been heaps a lot bigger since.

So there are vast sums of money that are moving around the world all the time for lots of different reasons.

But I think for a small New Zealand financial service provider from an office in Hamilton, it was quite surprising, I think, to discover the scale of this business.

So I think it's more a case that New Zealand authorities don't vet the minority shareholders of companies.