William Fotherby: NZ Fraud Festival chair on what people can expect for the Wellington event

For fans of true crime, one new Wellington-based film festival promises to offer a new experience.

The New Zealand International Fraud Film Festival is set to run from March 17 to 18 for two days of documentaries and discussion panels at the Roxy Cinema.

NZ Fraud Festival chair William Fotherby says this festival is designed to educate people about the realities of fraud and associated scams.

"The overall objective is to raise awareness of fraud in New Zealand so we can prevent it. We also try and be a forum for discussion between people involved in combating fraud."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB something a.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Bit different for you now, it's a film festival with
a dark side. It's definitely one for the lovers of
true crime. The New Zealand International Fraud Film Festival is
coming to Wellington and March. This week, the festival announced
its full program New Zealand to Fraud. Festival chair William
Fatherbee joins me. Now, good morning William.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Good morning Francisca, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
You yourself are a lawyer with expertise in fraud. How
did you get involved with the Fraud Film Festival?

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yeah, so this is the iteration of the festival. My firm,
Marri's con has been involved in Aubumn from the very
start alongside Deloitte. And you might know that Mara's Connor
is a private law firm, but it's also the office
of one of the crowdslisters for Quindalicia and McClintock. So
that means that we do a lot of work with

(01:03):
law enforcement or with regulate is combating forward or adjacent
to it. So I think as a firm we are
particularly attuned to why this type of event and the
fighting fraud is important and useful and personally, my practice
is investigating corporate fraud or trying to recover the losses
for the victims of fraud. So you do see the

(01:27):
devastating consequences.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
The reality of it.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So often you're dealing with people
who have lost life saving so we do recognize. I
think the importance of public outreach.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Willian, what is the aim of the festival? Is it entertainment, education,
A bit of.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
Both, yeah, So I think the overall objective is to
raise awareness of fraud in New Zealand so we can
prevent it. And we also try and be a forum
for discussion between people involved in combating fraud. And they're
obviously a number of lads you can do that, but
we think that if you want to be effective, you

(02:05):
have to have some that's interesting and engaging and different,
and that's why it's a Fraud Film Festival. Definitely educational.
If you're a lawyer, you get CBD points. But I
think one of the best things about it is you know,
some of this material, if you say, is quite dark

(02:25):
and and unsettling, but the documentaries are very good at
showing the human story, the points resilience, the little points
of light. So I think it is entertaining and ultimately uplifting.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Do you have a mussy documentary amongst the ones that
have been announced.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Well, they're all They're all excellent obviously, but if I
could choose one, I would choose one called Staff The
FC is about how the East German Secret Service infilstrated
infiltrated football in Germany in the nineteen seventies. That one

(03:05):
has to be seen.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Oh, I love it. Bit of sport and a bit
of crime. As the general public, do you think that
the general public is quite naive to the extent in
which some of these frauds go.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Yeah. What I think is is not well understood is
just the scale of what we are up against. So today,
you know, last year about two hundred million dollars in
New Zealand was lost to fraud and it is organized forward, systematized, forward,
corporatized fraud. One book I can recommend to your listeners

(03:41):
as a book called number goes up by a gun
called zeg Foe. It's largely about cryptocurrency. That one of
the things that he does is he takes you inside
these prison compounds in Cambodia where people are at tripped
to coming and basically directed to spend their days targeting
Westerners through romance stands. So the under no illusion that

(04:05):
there is a whole industry out they're targeting Westerners and
New Zealand for it for a number of reasons, because
newsic targets.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
When you sort of read the synopsis for some of
these films, do you think to yourself, Oh, this is
just something Hollywood's made up, don't you. I mean, they
are quite outrageous.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Yeah, so I think too. Two ones that fall into
that category of outrageous are one film called Lie to Me.
You know, that's about the one coin scam. One pin
was since we're cryptocurrency is actually a peribid scheme was
run by someone also known as the crypto Queen Reja
in Natoba, and that was a four billion dollar fraud

(04:45):
and it was not just a cryptocurrency but sort of
a bit of a religion that came with it. And
you see, think about that as some of their money
ended up in New Zealand and a property in Wellington,
and the New Zealand police ultimately see I had a
nice connection there. The other one on highlighted one called

(05:05):
the Man one thousand Spaces. So this is a romance
scams sort of like the Tinderswindler that you may have seen.
That unlike the Tinderswindler, the Sky would have up to
four different women on the go at any one time,
had four different backstories, four different personalities, and that one

(05:27):
goes into how he adapted the story, personality, behavior to
each of those different lives.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
Oh look, William, some fascinating stories there. Thank you very
much for your time this morning. The New Zealand International
Fraud Film Festival comes to Wellington's Roxy Cinema on March
the seventeenth and eighteenth. You can find more info at
Fraudfilmfest dot co dot nz.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudken, listen
live to News Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio