Former sex expo firm – Eden Digital Ltd – owes $350,000 – NZ Herald 16 June 2012

The company that held the licence for a sex expo allegedly still owes creditors more than $350,000, according to its liquidator’s latest report.

In 2008 Auckland-based Eden Digital was given the licence to run the Erotica Lifestyle Expo – an event “targeted at adult consumers” which has been held in Auckland and some other North Island centres for more than a decade.

The event was often preceded by the Boobs on Bikes parade, which featured topless women riding on motorcycles.

But in November last year Eden Digital was placed into liquidation after its licence for the expo was cancelled by its shareholder CVC Group.

CVC is also the sole shareholder of Esprit Events, the new licence-holder for the expo.

After the cancellation, Eden Digital’s income was “decimated”, liquidator Grant Reynolds said.

According to a report Reynolds filed with the Companies Office this week, Eden Digital allegedly still owes creditors more than $350,000.

One preferential creditor had filed a claim for $171,792 and seven non-preferential unsecured creditors had filed claims totalling $183,901, the report said.

At the time of liquidation it was estimated the company owed $434,000.

A list of creditors when the company was first liquidated included Inland Revenue, ACC, ASB Showgrounds and Marquis Condoms.

According to Reynolds, Eden Digital was sold to a related party shortly before he was appointed and he is investigating this sale, as well as any possible voidable preferences.

A voidable preference is a payment of debt made before liquidation which a liquidator can apply to call back on the grounds it unfairly privileged some creditors over others.

Reynolds is also investigating any possible Companies Act breaches.

Pornography industry heavyweight Steve Crow is a former director of Eden Digital, according to Companies Office records. In 2010, Crow was banned from acting as a director for four years after the collapse of companies linked to him.

Source. Story by Hamish Fletcher. 16 June 2012

See: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10813330

Terrorism and money laundering – Guidance for Charities

The Charities Commission has produced a very helpful guide explaining how those involved in the charity sector can, among other things, identify and guard against money launderers who aim to legitimise money sourced in illegal activities, by chanelling it through charities. It also explains how charity funds have been siphoned off to finance terrorism – whereby charities operate as mere fronts for money laundering operations.  Illegal activities generating funding sources for terrorism can include the pornography industry (an exploitative and morally bankrupt multi-billion dollar sleaze industry world-wide) and its close bed mates prostitution and illegal drug trafficking. It can also involve those in the property development industry, for example company directors who set up a complex convoluted quagmire of company networks designed to avoid tax, confound enforcement agencies and safeguard their own financial interests, as opposed to those of their investors and secured and unsecured creditors, in situations where the companies become insolvent and are placed into liquidation or receivership. False residential addresses, bogus shareholding listings, NZ – based “virtual offices” run from overseas and multiple addresses listed across many companies for the same individual can be pointers for enforcement agencies in the direction of money laundering and even links to terrorism and/or illegal arms trading etc.

See: http://www.charities.govt.nz/news/fact_sheets/new%20info%20sheets/HOW-TERROR.pdf

%d bloggers like this: