Former SFO Director on Peters

The founding director of the SFO, Chas Sturt, has said that the SFO should use its power to compel documents:

The Serious Fraud Office should be using its special powers to investigate the Winston Peters donation controversy, says its founding director, Chas Sturt.

Mr Sturt said the publicly available information about donations intended for Mr Peters’ NZ First party met his “smell test” – making it suspicious enough for the SFO to use the statutory power that can force documents to be produced. Mr Sturt said this would allow SFO investigators to check the “paper trail”.

Now Mr Sturt has some history with Peters, but he is right that independently checking the paper trail is crucial with these issues.

But the SFO has not ruled out using those powers, if it decides to launch a full investigation. It may find there is enough evidence already out there to launch a full investigation, without invoking their powers at this stage.

If however they do decide there is nothing to investigate, then the non-use of their powers to verify information could seem unusual. But from all accounts they are taking their duty very seriously, and have been doing in depth interviews with relevant players.