{"id":583792,"date":"2026-08-29T07:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T07:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/583792\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T07:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T07:22:10","slug":"marith-khao-jailed-for-sharesies-cards-theft-and-bank-scam-totalling-74k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/583792\/","title":{"rendered":"Marith Khao jailed for Sharesies, cards theft and bank scam totalling $74k"},"content":{"rendered":"

He appeared for sentencing in the Hamilton District Court<\/a> on Wednesday before Judge Glen Marshall, who said Khao had little empathy for his victims and described his actions as \u201cparticularly callous\u201d.<\/p>\n

The first victim, from Christchurch, was the target of a \u201cremote access scam\u201d.<\/p>\n

That sees scammers impersonate legitimate organisations, including banks, by phone, text or email.<\/p>\n

They often have access to some of the victim\u2019s details, using them to confirm and legitimise their call, claim there\u2019s a problem, get them to take immediate action and obtain their passwords and sensitive information.<\/p>\n

The money is then transferred into a third-party account, in this case Khao, before it\u2019s either withdrawn or transferred again.<\/p>\n

At 8.30am on June 3, 2023, the 77-year-old received a call from a man called \u201cRobert Diego\u201d, claiming to be from ANZ Bank.<\/p>\n

He said her account had been hacked by someone in the United States and the \u201cbank\u201d was investigating.<\/p>\n

Over four hours, the caller convinced the victim that as part of their investigation they would need to transfer $24,000 from her account briefly, before being put back in.<\/p>\n

When she became suspicious, \u201cDiego\u201d gave her a number to call for the \u201cANZ fraud team\u201d, who reassured her it was legitimate.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiego\u201d then got her to say, \u201cmy voice confirms my identity\u201d, which the bank used for its Voice ID security feature, replacing the need for a pin or passcode.<\/p>\n

At 12.30pm, the money was transferred into Khao\u2019s BNZ account, which cleared his $2351.43 in overdrawn balances. He then split it between his three accounts.<\/p>\n

On the same day, an unknown Auckland-based third party made several withdrawals totalling $21,478.70.<\/p>\n

The next victim was a 39-year-old man.<\/p>\n

He had his wallet and other items stolen from his vehicle parked outside his Hamilton home on November 12 last year.<\/p>\n

Khao then used the victim\u2019s Westpac Mastercard for two purchases of $150 and $145.90 at the Z Tuhikaramea, Dinsdale.<\/p>\n

The following day, one of Khao\u2019s associates stole a 43-year-old man\u2019s cellphone from his vehicle parked at Mitre 10, Matamata.<\/p>\n

His Sharesies account was accessed, and three withdrawals were made: $17,658, $15,000, and $20,000.<\/p>\n

Only the $17,658 was successful.<\/p>\n

Khao used that money to distribute among his bank accounts and buy a new car.<\/p>\n

When questioned by police, Khao said he didn\u2019t know how the $24,000 ended up in his account, \u201cbut an Indian guy who he doesn\u2019t know has been using his bank\u201d, court documents state.<\/p>\n

A \u201cShane Smith\u201d told him to use the second victim\u2019s card.<\/p>\n

As for the last victim, he said he\u2019d sold his brother\u2019s car and was moving money around to try to give it to him.<\/p>\n

Of the stolen $17,658, Sharesies managed to recover $3000.<\/p>\n

Khao also admitted a charge of intentionally damaging a Lexus on August 30, 2024, after deliberately crashing into the victim\u2019s car, causing $3500 damage.<\/p>\n

Khao\u2019s counsel Shaam Bhardwaj told Judge Marshall that his client has spent the last six-and-a-half months in custody, and pushed for a time-served sentence.<\/p>\n

He also didn\u2019t have money to pay reparation, Bhardwaj said.<\/p>\n

But Judge Marshall was not impressed by his crime spree.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have an extensive list of dishonesty convictions, and it seems to me that trend is just continuing on.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are creating considerable harm and damage to the community, as can be seen, this offending is preying on the vulnerable, elderly and other innocent members of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khao had a meth \u201cissue\u201d, and remorse and empathy for victims also seemed \u201cpretty absent\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

Judge Marshall said the only appropriate sentence would be one of prison.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is particularly callous offending and involved large sums of money and a high degree of deception and organisation requiring swift action on behalf of the scammers to whip money out of accounts and then redistribute almost immediately so that it\u2019s very difficult to trace.\u201d<\/p>\n

He took an overall starting point of 20 months\u2019 jail, before allowing adjustments for his plea and criminal history.<\/p>\n

On charges of receiving property, money laundering, and using a document, Khao was jailed for 18 months.<\/p>\n

He also ordered Khao to pay reparation to all four victims totalling $11,795.90.<\/p>\n

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He appeared for sentencing in the Hamilton District Court on Wednesday before Judge Glen Marshall, who said Khao…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[42344,287334,88773,29184,95,1643,15458,1348,2082,14641,287333,5812,16122,287332,130,111,43,139,69,1461,13909,1346,131,14168,66960,1529,96121,59379],"class_list":["post-583792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-42344","tag-74k","tag-accessed","tag-account","tag-and","tag-bank","tag-cards","tag-cellphone","tag-for","tag-jailed","tag-khao","tag-make","tag-mans","tag-marith","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-scam","tag-sharesies","tag-stole","tag-than","tag-theft","tag-thieves","tag-three","tag-totalling","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583792","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=583792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}