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British fraudster Jack Hennessy (inset) seen trying to escape from police on Auckland’s Hobson St in June 2024. The 27-year-old has been granted release from prison and is to be deported from New Zealand.
Photo: NZME / composite
An English scammer who posed as a police courier to dupe pensioners into giving him $337,700 has been granted early release from prison, and will now be deported from New Zealand next month.
Jack Dylan Hennessy has also been instructed in a Parole Board decision not to return in the foreseeable future.
The 27-year-old was sentenced in November 2024 to three years and three months in prison for offending described by a judge as “reprehensible”, premeditated and “carried out with almost military precision”.
The British national admitted 25 charges of obtaining by deception after he was caught and arrested soon after arriving in the country in June 2024.
The offending targeted more than 20 victims, aged from 59 to 92, who were tricked into thinking they were assisting an elaborate law enforcement investigation.
Several spoke later of their intense shame after realising they’d been duped, the devastating financial effects on their retirement plans, and feelings of fear and violation that the scammers knew their addresses and had personally visited their homes.
‘Disgusted and embarrassed’
At sentencing in the Auckland District Court, he was given a statutory release date of 24 September, 2027.
He told the Parole Board at a hearing last July, when seeking early release, he was now “disgusted and embarrassed” by his actions.
He claimed he only agreed to board the flight to New Zealand and pick up packages stuffed with cash after a British crime syndicate threatened to harm his mother and brother.
However, the panel hearing the parole case was not convinced of his sincerity, because he refused to co-operate with police and tell them who was behind the scam ring he was part of.
The panel said banks covered a lot of the losses suffered, but $28,000 remained outstanding, which Hennessy said he intended to repay.
He was granted parole at a second hearing last month, despite lingering concerns regarding his victim narrative.
He had also earlier claimed he was blackmailed into his actions after losing a luxury $200,000 Swiss watch “loaned to him by dangerous British criminals”.
Panel convenor Ann-Marie Beveridge said his victim narrative bordered on him describing a situation in which he was “heroic”, saving his family from being impacted by a so-called organised criminal group.
“He said at one point he is easily led. We are not so sure about that,” Beveridge said.
Offending started soon after landing
Hennessy landed in Auckland on 9 June, 2024, rented a downtown apartment, then proceeded to steal $337,700 over the next 14 days.
The victims were called by scammers posing as police officers and convinced to withdraw large sums of money from their bank accounts in the belief they were assisting undercover detectives in a sting operation targeting counterfeit banknotes.
Hennessy used taxis to visit the victims’ homes to collect the cash, posing as a plain-clothed police courier. He used prearranged code words including “aroha”, “tōtara” “treetop” and “Timbuktu” to convince his victims he was a genuine state operative.
They believed that after they handed the money to Hennessy, it would be whisked to investigators, checked for fake notes, then redeposited into their accounts.
In reality, the money was either pocketed by Hennessy or sent to his bosses overseas.
Caught weeks after arriving
Hennessy said at last year’s parole hearing he was told to contact a person in Auckland, who took a cut from the money he handed over and transferred the rest as cryptocurrency.
He was caught just weeks after arriving on his way to pick up $20,000 from an 83-year-old victim who had already handed over $16,000.
After being spotted in a taxi in central Auckland, he led police on a brief foot chase before being arrested.
Beveridge said in a written decision provided to NZME following last month’s hearing that Hennessy maintained his narrative that an organised criminal group were threatening him and his family, and that he had no other choice but to commit the offending.
“In saying that, we do not have any affidavit evidence from him or anyone else to support that narrative,” she said.
The panel accepted legal submissions on Hennessy’s behalf that he posed an “exceptionally low risk” of reoffending, that he had family support and was anxious to return to his family.
Showed remorse and insight
He had also demonstrated remorse and insight, and it was in the public interest that he be released.
“Further, that whatever risk may exist, the nature and seriousness of potential offending does not indicate the need for continued incarceration,” Beveridge said.
The panel was satisfied Hennessy would not be an undue risk for the period for which he would be on parole and directed that he be released in March into the custody of the New Zealand Immigration authorities, or to the New Zealand Police, for deportation from New Zealand.
Special conditions imposed until September 2027 included that he not return to New Zealand.
* This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.