\u201cDuring the financial investigation, it was established that the couple deposited over $200,000 cash into their bank accounts and spent almost $400,000 cash. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe cash was used to facilitate the purchases of vehicles, jewellery and residential property, as well as paying for renovations on the various properties they owned.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hubbard and Edwards had allegedly registered some of the acquired property in the names of relatives or associates to distance themselves from the offending and hinder efforts to identify the assets.<\/p>\n
The couple have been convicted of multiple charges relating to the supply of methamphetamine in Wairoa. Photo \/ NZ Police<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a further example of police successfully targeting organised crime through both the criminal and civil courts,\u201d Acting Detective Sergeant Kennard said.<\/p>\n
He believed the result would have a \u201csignificant impact\u201d for the Wairoa community.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeeing offenders held to account and stripped of their criminal proceeds should remind the community that police will continue their efforts to hold offenders to account across Hawke\u2019s Bay.<\/p>\n
\u201cOrganised crime gangs in Hawke\u2019s Bay cause serious harm to our communities. Police will continue to work to strip organised crime groups and their associates of their wealth earnt from criminal activity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police are also urging businesses to \u201ctake extra caution\u201d when accepting substantial cash payments from gang members, warning they could unintentionally become involved in criminal activity.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough often unknowingly, you could be assisting people who are bringing great harm into the community, while you are potentially participating in a money laundering transaction that you or your business may be criminally liable for,\u201d Acting Detective Sergeant Kennard said.<\/p>\n
The assets have been forfeited under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009, which allows police to seize assets acquired or derived from criminal proceeds.<\/p>\n
Recovered funds will be returned to the Crown and may be used to support initiatives aimed at preventing and reducing the harm caused by drug and organised crime in Hawke\u2019s Bay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cDuring the financial investigation, it was established that the couple deposited over $200,000 cash into their bank accounts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[81990,95,19092,6932,5767,8414,5504,71,305,12898,42031,1868,13240,130,111,43,139,69,1356,12641,3374,131,6861,15289],"class_list":["post-549628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-81990","tag-and","tag-assets","tag-cash","tag-convicted","tag-couple","tag-following","tag-from","tag-have","tag-investigation","tag-lengthy","tag-meth","tag-methamphetamine","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-properties","tag-seized","tag-supplying","tag-than","tag-vehicles","tag-wairoa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549628","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=549628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}