{"id":302422,"date":"2026-02-26T02:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T02:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/302422\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T02:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T02:58:10","slug":"gisborne-farmer-john-bracken-nzs-biggest-gst-fraudster-has-16m-of-assets-confiscated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/302422\/","title":{"rendered":"Gisborne farmer John Bracken, NZ\u2019s biggest GST fraudster, has $16m of assets confiscated"},"content":{"rendered":"

Then, in 2022, police applied under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009<\/a> to permanently seize property and assets that Bracken had obtained through \u201csignificant criminal activity\u201d and forfeit them to the Crown.<\/p>\n

The police application extended to property owned or controlled not just by Bracken, but also by his company Bracken Enterprises Ltd (BEL), a family trust and various named members of his family.<\/p>\n

\"JohnJohn Bracken was convicted after an eight-day trial in 2021. Photo \/ Paul Rickard<\/p>\n

The application covered the Bracken family\u2019s $3.8m \u201coriginal farm\u201d near Matawai, inland from Gisborne<\/a>, a $6.9m property nearby called Burnbrae, a holiday home at \u014cp\u014dtiki<\/a> and houses in Gisborne.<\/p>\n

Bracken opposed the police application to permanently seize his assets, and it went before Justice Dale La Hood in the High Court<\/a> at Gisborne to be decided.<\/p>\n

Justice La Hood\u2019s decision, released this week, granted a forfeiture order over most of the property, but allowed the family to keep the original farm, which is registered to the Bracken Family Trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe relief [of excluding the original farm] will allow the innocent trust beneficiaries to continue to benefit from the financial, physical and emotional security provided by the generational family farm acquired prior to the offending,\u201d Justice La Hood said.<\/p>\n

GST claims filed for fictitious transactions<\/p>\n

Bracken committed his tax fraud<\/a> between 2014 and 2018 by claiming GST refunds falsely stating he had exported products \u2013 including bottled water, milk, logs, plywood and honey \u2013 that he had bought from New Zealand suppliers.<\/p>\n

At his trial, it was accepted that Bracken legitimately exported goods to the Pacific \u2014 mainly plywood and timber \u2014 but it was nowhere near the level he purported for his scam.<\/p>\n

During the offence period, Bracken claimed to have entered into transactions totalling about $133m, which enabled the $17.3m refunds.<\/p>\n

New Zealand Customs records show that goods he actually exported amounted to about $478,000.<\/p>\n

A woman involved in preparing invoices for Bracken contacted the Serious Fraud Office<\/a> in 2017 after she became concerned that what she was doing was illegal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Commissioner [of Police] emphasises that the fraud involved not merely the avoidance of a tax debt, but the actual receipt of more than $17 million to which there was no entitlement, which represent funds stolen from the New Zealand taxpayer,\u201d Justice La Hood said.<\/p>\n

Other assets covered by the order<\/p>\n

The forfeiture order issued by Justice La Hood covers real estate and other assets, up to a maximum amount of $16.02m.<\/p>\n

In addition to the Burnbrae property, the holiday home and the houses, it also orders forfeiture of more than $1m in bank deposits, along with motor vehicles, farm machinery and a jet ski.<\/p>\n

A further $1.3m in cash was transferred to the Inland Revenue Department<\/a> in 2024.<\/p>\n

Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME\u2019s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke\u2019s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of frontline experience as a probation officer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Then, in 2022, police applied under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 to permanently seize property and assets…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111585,19092,6326,165838,47153,12026,6126,12506,7510,6871,5126,111,43,139,69,3272,1118],"class_list":{"0":"post-302422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-16m","9":"tag-assets","10":"tag-biggest","11":"tag-bracken","12":"tag-confiscated","13":"tag-farmer","14":"tag-fraudster","15":"tag-gisborne","16":"tag-gst","17":"tag-has","18":"tag-john","19":"tag-new-zealand","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-newzealand","22":"tag-nz","23":"tag-nzs","24":"tag-of"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}