A master swindler, who wants to be a millionaire but eventually earns money for the government he swindled for a record amount, has not done it right.

When the police raided the house of Graham Johnstone they found more than they expected. Three-quarter of a million, in fifty dollar notes, was buried in the garden. In the shower recess they discovered hundreds of credit cards, falsified birth certificates, passports and tax IDs. Also almost two hundred thousand dollars cash was hidden in the house and thirteen gold bars weighing one kilo each, with a value of thirty-one mille, plus about six smaller bars. And more than hundred keys of PO Boxes throughout the country.
And how did Johnstone get all that money? From the Social Service.

False identities
His real name was Wayne Graham Patterson. He had supplied 123 false names and addresses, which yielded an allowance or a (kind of) pension. This way he received more than a hundred thousand dollars per month. That was made possible because the gullible Service did not check the names at the registry of births, deaths and marriages. Anyway the birth certificates had been copied so well that even experts found them hard to distinguish from the real thing. Of course swindling of false identification documents had happened before, but Patterson was the first who created completely new identities and of course the respectable kiwi public servants did not have any suspicion.

White collar
The 47 year old Patterson, formerly an electrician, but looking like a neat businessman, smartly dressed, turns out to be a professional swindler. For thirty years he had been swindling in the United States and Australia, and he had been in prison before. The neighbours had not suspected anything. They liked him and thought he looked smart, but he kept to himself.

Investment expert
Patterson received $3.4 million dollar, an absolute record, thirteen times the previous record of a quarter million. The money was partially spent on his own comfort. His cheap rented house looked neglected on the outside, but inside designer furniture, luxurious installations with a wall-to-wall TV-screen and $50.000 worth of exotic plants in the garden. Of course the house had been heavily secured with the latest equipment.
He wanted to use the rest of the money to become a multi-millionaire. He carefully put it aside and invested it very well. The Ministry of Justice succeeded to get back more than four million. If they deduct the legal costs of two hundred thousand dollars a net profit of four or five hundred thousand dollars still remains.

Public servants
The judge mentioned the busy daily task Wayne had made of his fraud. He had to travel throughout the country and have interviews everywhere, for which he had to change his clothes and make up. He also appreciated his good investments which had made a nice profit, but he nevertheless sent Wayne to prison for eight years.
The ministry was not contactable for comments. As of now the department of social service compares the offered identity papers with the birth certificates at the registry of births, deaths and marriages.
Patterson’s' parents visited him in his cell. He is doing well, they said, but he was so concerned about his tropical fish that it brought tears to his eyes, when he was told that they were well looked after.

End well, all well (?)
And now everyone is happy, except poor Patterson, who had to work hard and in the end lost everything to the authority of which he had stolen so carefully. Perhaps Crime does not pay after all.

The Dutch version of this article is published in the January/February 2008 edition of Holland Focus.
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