Quite a bit of trouble here for New Zealand's Thompson & Clark Investigations. We first wrote about these shenanigans back in May of '07. Well worth reading the follow-up - spy cameras, infiltration of student activist groups, defense contractors. Truly, you'll love it.

-- MDT

Labels: New Zealand, Thompson and Clark

The New Zealand's Solid Energy, the largest coal mining company in the country and a state owned enterprise has been exposed for hiring private investigators to infiltrate local environmental activist groups.

Apparently this kind of story is not new in the Aukland area code, but the activities of Solid Energy and the PI firm hired to do their dirty work, Thompson & Clark, are getting a great deal of no-doubt unwanted attention...

Read all about it in the Sunday Star Times.

-- MDT

Labels: activist groups, infiltration, New Zealand, Solid Energy, Thompson and Clark

You may have seen our first note on this story earlier in the week. Apologies for referring back to it again, but, yes, there actually is more to the tale (tail?). Click here for lots of prominent New Zealanders blaming each other for watching some sheepshagging back in '81.

-- MDT

Labels: New Zealand

Not even sure what to do with this... Certainly it's not news but I do find it amusing that the originating point for this story is New Zealand.

-- MDT

Labels: New Zealand, private investigator

Charles Elliott Fitzgerald has been on the run since 2003, when he disappeared from California along with $550 million dollars he swindled from mortgage lenders in phoney real estate deals. It was known all along by authorities that Fitzgerald had family in the pacific islands but for several years his location remained unknown.

Fitzgerald (an extremely odd duck) probably would have remained free indefinitely were it not for Trever Morley, a Wellington, New Zealand based private investigator. Morely was hired by an American client to track down Fitzgerald and the former police inspector managed to do that very thing. He found Fitzgerald in Samoa and informed his client who notified the FBI.

Fitzgerald was deported and is now back in California awaiting trial on bank fraud and money laundering. Kudos Morley!

Several Fitzgerald accomplices have already plead guilty and are awaiting sentencing, including:

Mark Abrams, 45, of Long Beach, CA
Nicole LaViolette, 37, of Palm Springs, CA
Jamieson Matykowski, 33, of Laguna Niguel, CA
Timothy Holland, 35, of Santa Ana, CA

Further details on Fitzgerald's scam and the current case, check out this December 13th post from RealBlogging.

-- MDT

Labels: Charles Elliott Fitzgerald, FBI, fugitive, money laundering, New Zealand, Samoa, Trevor Morley