Home detention for wage subsidy fraud of $180,000

Hares Milad, also known as Ahmad Zafar, received $29,480.80, and was unsuccessful with applications for another $154,363.60. 

Mr Milad, appeared in the Auckland District Court on 12 May having earlier admitted to two representative charges of using a document to gain pecuniary advantage in connection with the scheme.   

Mr Milad made one application in March 2020 in the name of AFG Limited and received $22,459.20. 

The next month he applied in the name of Gull Painters Limited and received $7029.60. 

Mr Milad was the sole director and shareholder of AFG and Gull Painters. Neither company was operational at the time of the wage subsidy applications, and neither employed any of the individuals named in the wage subsidy applications. 

Mr Milad spent the money on Uber trips, online gambling, retail purchases, and paying off an overdraft. 

Mr Milad also made 16 unsuccessful further attempts to defraud the scheme between April and August 2020. 

Judge Evangelos Thomas sentenced Milad to eight months home detention. Judge Thomas said that sending him to prison would be contrary to his extensive rehabilitation efforts to date. Another factor in choosing home detention was the defendant’s offer of reparation.  

MSD sought reparation of $29,488.80 which Mr Milad will repay as part of his sentence. 

A total of 36 people have been sentenced in wage subsidy cases, and another 53 people are still before the courts as part of MSD’s programme of work on wage subsidy fraud and integrity. Since the scheme started, more than $829 million* in wage subsidies has been repaid. For more information about the Wage Subsidy Integrity and Fraud Programme please see here.

*figures as at 31 March, 2025.