New Zealand hit by scandal involving a bridge player.

From Sunday Star Times

Malcolm Mayer, a New Zealand representative bridge player, sips on a cup of instant coffee and admits to his part in a $50 million loans scam.

In an extraordinary interview with the Sunday Star-Times yesterday, the 53-year-old property developer casually described how he helped arrange a scheme whereby relatives and associates, including immigrants with virtually no money to their names, were used to secure up to $50m in loans from fund management company Trustees Executors Ltd (TEL). At least $33m of the loans, funded by the Tower insurance mortgage fund which TEL administered, have defaulted.

Mayer is being pursued by the Serious Fraud Office and has come clean publicly to save his family from further distress; he says his sister-in-law has already been “interrogated” by the SFO. “I don’t want them to compromise themselves in order to protect me; they are honourable people,” he said.

Top NZ bridge player, Malcolm Mayer looking at a layout where he can only go down.

See here for the rest of the sorry tale.

Whatever one may say about the fact that Malcolm has taken actions that have ruined the lives of many, standing up at this point is still to be respected. I have a friend currently serving five years’ gaol in the US for major corporate fraud. I used to think those sorts of gaol terms were meaningless. Big corporate executives getting away with easy punishments. Now that I am intimately following the life of one such person, I have to say, the punishment is oh so real.

Well, if nothing else, it looks like the standard of bridge in the NZ prison system will suddenly make a big leap forward. That’s one of the good things Malcolm will be able to do while he is there.