NZ's biggest-ever tax fraudster John Bracken jailed
11 May, 2021 05:27 AM
8 minutes to read
John Bracken was sentenced to eight years. Photo / Paul Rickard
Gisborne Herald
Matawai farmer John Bracken, who became New Zealand's biggest-ever tax fraudster when he fleeced the IRD for $17.3 million through bogus GST refund claims, has been jailed for eight years, six months.
Bracken, 55, was sentenced this morning by Justice Graham Lang in the High Court at Gisborne.
The sentence met with a loud objection from one of Bracken's stalwart supporters, his McKenzie friend at trial Peter Helmbright, who yelled it would be appealed, that the court had no jurisdiction to impose it and that it defied a previously agreed initiative for better relationships between Māori and Pākehā authorities.