The Samoan Seventh Day Adventist Church in New Zealand has come underneath hearth, for allegedly laundering hundreds of thousands of {dollars} by the OneCoin Ponzi scheme.
The Samoan Seventh Day Adventist Church (SISDAC) is underneath investigation by New Zealand’s Division of Inside Affairs (DIA).
As per a report by Radio New Zealand, the DIA are investigating the church underneath the Charities Act.
Whereas neither the DIA or Samoan Seventh Day Adventist Church have revealed particular particulars relating to the investigation, it has come to mild the church laundered hundreds of thousands by OneCoin.
In accordance with their web site, one of many DIA’s mandates is investigation and regulation of cash laundering in New Zealand.
As recounted by a person who attended a gathering at SISDAC’s Auckland department final 12 months,
chief govt Willie Papu informed the assembly that the church had invested $NZ3.5 million into OneCoin in case its property had been frozen throughout the DIA investigation.
Uh, investing cash into OneCoin to to evade authorities and get it in a foreign country? Seems like a slam-dunk case of cash laundering to me.
When approached by Radio New Zealand for remark, SISDAC wouldn’t touch upon Papu’s feedback.
The church did state nevertheless that the DIA’s investigation “was in its ultimate phases.”
When information broke again in April of scammers utilizing SISDAC to avoid a Samoan ban on OneCoin funding, SISDAC publicly denied the claims.
As additional developments come to mild, it’s more and more wanting like yet one more case of church leaders herding congregations right into a Ponzi scheme for private achieve.
Whereas the DIA’s investigation isn’t protecting SISDAC’s hyperlinks to OneCoin (past cash laundering), certainly there’s another regulatory company that needs to be choosing up the slack?
In any other case what, abusing a place of authority to encourage funding right into a Ponzi scheme for private achieve is authorized in New Zealand…?
I actually hope not.
Replace seventeenth February 2021 – Charities Service’s investigation into the Samoan Impartial Seventh Day Adventist Church has confirmed OneCoin associated fraud.
SISDAC has consequently been struck off New Zealand’s Charities Register.