24 Jun 2004

Fiji white collar crime spreads

3:49 pm on 24 June 2004

Fiji police have warned that there's been a 500-percent increase in white collar crimes since last year.

Offences in this category include corruption, abuse of office, larceny, forgery, computer fraud and obtaining money by false pretences.

In the latest instance, a soldier has been charged after he broke into the army computer system, entered a non-existent soldiers name into the pay records and diverted the fictitious pay into his own bank account account.

Although the systematic computer fraud began in August last year, it was discovered only this month by which time over 14-thousand US dollars had been siphoned off.