Wife of former public servant charged with fraud

By ELIZABETH VUVU
THE wife of a former public servant attached to the New Guinea Islands Regional Public Curator’s Office in Kokopo has been arrested and charged with fraud and money laundering.
Esther Noah, 25, was charged by the fraud squad after being interrogated, said East New Britain acting police commander Inspector Joseph Tabali said.
The charges relate to the use of a personal bank account to transfer money withdrawn from a trust account that the office used to keep the funds of people who had pdied.
Two former male officers were implicated.
Noah, a former public servant from Vunatagia in the Kokopo district, was charged with one count of dishonestly applying and six counts of money laundering.
Police said the trust account with Bank South Pacific showed several withdrawals between September last year and last month, with cheque payments allegedly deposited to the personal account in question.
Tabali said the cheque payments totalled more than K47,000.
The money was withdrawn through ATM machines in Kokopo and Port Moresby.
The complaint was lodged last week based on an internal audit report from the NGI Regional Public Curator’s Office.
Tabali said Noah was the first arrested and more arrests were expected.