first charged with money laundering in 2021<\/a> over the initial $204,000 payment, then again in May 2023 over the Michalick deposit. Sharma fought unsuccessfully for permanent suppression and went on trial last week in Auckland District Court before Judge Simon Lance. <\/p>\nOn Thursday a recorded video interview Sharma gave police on the day of his 2023 arrest was played to the court. <\/p>\n
Dressed in shorts and a sports jacket, Sharma told the police officer he had not had breakfast or taken his diabetes medication. He also said he had a \u201cterrible headache\u201d and was suffering from concussion due to a football injury. <\/p>\n
The police officer said she wanted to discuss the $400,000 deposit. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you want to know?\u201d Sharma said. <\/p>\n
![\"Disbarred]()
Disbarred lawyer Rohineet Sharma leaves Auckland District Court after appearing on money laundering charges. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n
He told the officer he was chief executive of Green Solar 2024 Ltd, which was raising funds to build solar power plants.<\/p>\n
He outlined plans for a \u201cbillion-dollar\u201d, 700-megawatt project involving grid operator Transpower that he hoped to build \u201cwithin the decade\u201d. <\/p>\n
Sharma \u2013 who was struck off as a lawyer in 2019 for filing false mortgage documents \u2013 said he had been trying to raise capital for the project since 2016 but was repeatedly knocked back by New Zealand banks. <\/p>\n
This meant he was now attempting to source funds from international lenders and \u201chigh wealth\u201d foreign individuals. <\/p>\n
Sharma said he had a business associate in India who knew he was looking for finance. The associate put him in touch with a broker who could arrange lending to cover Sharma\u2019s \u201coverdue\u201d business expenses. <\/p>\n
In about December 2022, the broker told Sharma a lender was willing to provide $400,000, the court heard. <\/p>\n
\u201cI received the money, I used the money,\u201d Sharma said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat money was a loan from a person called Tim Michalick,\u201d Sharma said. \u201cYou want to know more?\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Northland]()
Northland luxury yacht skipper Tim Michalick lost $400,000 in a sophisticated investment scam in February 2023. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n
He said he never met Michalick but received a signed loan agreement through the broker and copy of Michalick\u2019s passport. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was quite relieved,\u201d Sharma said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looked very nice and proper.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said he had \u201cfull trust\u201d in the arrangement because \u201cat least I know the people\u201d.<\/p>\n
Sharma claimed he paid the broker a $7000 commission to a Malaysian account for arranging the loan.<\/p>\n
However, things went south later that month when a Kiwibank staffer contacted Sharma to inform him his account had been frozen and a \u201cfraud investigator\u201d would be in touch. <\/p>\n
He was contacted by the bank again a week later asking about the circumstances surrounding the deposit. <\/p>\n
Kiwibank wanted to see the loan agreement and Sharma said he was happy to send it. <\/p>\n
He then contacted his associate in India, saying: \u201cI have been told this is not good money. Tell me what\u2019s happening. I am in the dark.\u201d <\/p>\n
![\"Rohineet]()
Rohineet Sharma avoids the camera while appearing in the Auckland District Court on money laundering charges. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n
Asked about the terms of the supposed loan, Sharma said the money was to be repaid over \u201cfive or six\u201d years at an interest rate of \u201c3 or 4%\u201d. <\/p>\n
No repayments were required for at least a year, Sharma told the officer, but he said this was not unusual when conducting business ventures of this type.<\/p>\n
Money would be repaid through his business once the plants were built and started generating cash, he claimed.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Sharma said he was \u201ccontinuing in my endeavours\u201d to raise more finance, revealing he had a Zoom call scheduled that day with another US lender.<\/p>\n
He claimed he had approached \u201cat least 100 companies overseas because of the magnitude of what we want to do\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve tried asking for money here but it\u2019s very difficult if you go to the banks.\u201d <\/p>\n
Sharma also revealed he had been \u201cduped and scammed myself\u201d in his search for offshore funding in the US, Dubai and South Africa, involving supposed law firms and accountants. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve paid US$150,000 [$254,000] to someone and got scammed.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Accused]()
Accused money launderer and disbarred lawyer Rohineet Sharma allegedly used a scam victim’s stolen money to help finance a luxury rebuild of this Wai O Taiki Bay home near St Heliers. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n
The officer then questioned why Sharma was still seeking overseas loans \u201ceven today\u201d, despite losing money to previous rorts, his account being closed due to suspected fraud, and his subsequent arrest for money laundering. <\/p>\n
Sharma told police he was happy to provide the loan agreement and other documents to \u201cprove the authenticity\u201d of his arrangement with Michalick. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo this day I\u2019m told it\u2019s all good and proper, and yet Kiwibank has shut my account and I\u2019m sitting here with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sharma\u2019s lawyer Fletcher Pilditch, KC, then made a \u201cno case\u201d submission, asking for the charges to be thrown out. <\/p>\n
He told the court there was insufficient evidence to prove his client\u2019s guilt.<\/p>\n
It was admitted that the money deposited into Sharma\u2019s account in both cases was fraudulent and that Sharma had dealt with that money by making payments. <\/p>\n
![\"Fletcher]()
Fletcher Pilditch, KC, applied to have the case against his client dismissed. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
But the police position that Sharma had been reckless as to whether that money was the proceeds of criminal offending was not supported by evidence. <\/p>\n
Pilditch said there was no suggestion Sharma was party to either scam, which were likely perpetuated by an international organised crime group. <\/p>\n
It was up to the prosecution to prove Sharma had acted unreasonably.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr Sharma\u2019s beliefs are his beliefs. We need to assess his conduct in light of the beliefs he had.\u201d <\/p>\n
However, prosecutor Mohammed Chiraagh said there were obvious \u201cred flags\u201d. <\/p>\n
He questioned how the scammers came to have Sharma\u2019s bank account details and why they would have sent him $600,000 in stolen money. <\/p>\n
Sharma\u2019s apparent naivety could perhaps be explained if he was a \u201cregular dude\u201d, Chiraagh told the court. <\/p>\n
But by his own admission, Sharma was a \u201cbig man\u201d involved in \u201cbig projects\u201d, using money from rich international investors. <\/p>\n
His explanations didn\u2019t add up, Chiraagh alleged. <\/p>\n
Judge Lance dismissed the no case application, ruling there was sufficient evidence to provide \u201cinferences\u201d about Sharma\u2019s conduct and whether or not he knew the money was scam proceeds.<\/p>\n
But whether the prosecution had proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt was yet to be determined, the judge said.<\/p>\n
The defence opted not to call any evidence. <\/p>\n
Judge Lance reserved his decision, which will be handed down later this month. <\/p>\n
Lane Nichols is Auckland desk editor for the New Zealand Herald with more than 20 years\u2019 experience in the industry.<\/p>\n
Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He received another $400,000 payment into his Kiwibank account in February 2023, which it\u2019s accepted was the proceeds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[173570,1117,7818,8613,1121,32294,2562,211751,12474,1667,211749,51175,71,295,36091,55281,2959,24176,78,1019,321,29819,33186,20053,111,43,139,69,44355,10112,3263,2515,211750,1461,75224,4166,2742,54,28355,3912,2963],"class_list":["post-411714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-600k","tag-accused","tag-allegedly","tag-billion","tag-case","tag-charge","tag-claims","tag-disbarred","tag-dollars","tag-energy","tag-exlawyer","tag-fights","tag-from","tag-fund","tag-funds","tag-grid","tag-high","tag-hundreds","tag-in","tag-international","tag-investors","tag-involving","tag-laundering","tag-lawyer","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-operator","tag-power","tag-project","tag-raise","tag-rohineet","tag-scam","tag-sharma","tag-solar","tag-thousands","tag-trial","tag-trying","tag-wealth","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411714","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=411714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}