Aayush Arora appears for sentencing in Auckland District Court after embezzling $262,000 from his employer, ANZ.
Photo: NZ Herald / Jason Oxenham

A former Auckland bank employee who embezzled $262,000 from the business to fuel a severe gambling addiction has been ordered to serve home detention so he can pay the money back – albeit at a rate unlikely to offer the lender much hope for a quick recovery: $130 a week.

Aayush Arora, 25, of New Lynn, used his position of trust as a personal banker to approve 15 fraudulent loans over a one-month period last winter while he was working from home.

ANZ bank discovered the missing money in a July audit and Arora was arrested in October.

He was able to immediately return $47,000 he had not spent, but the remaining $215,000 “was largely gambled away at the SkyCity Casino in Auckland”, the agreed summary of facts said.

Standing before Judge Debra Bell in Auckland District Court last week, Arora said through his lawyer that he could pay another $2500 in reparation immediately. The judge authorised an additional $20,000 to be removed from his KiwiSaver account.

But more than $190,000 that remains missing will need to be paid off in instalments based on his new, less lucrative job as a cashier at a South Auckland restaurant – an effort that the judge acknowledged would take “quite a few years”.

His weekly payments will be reassessed in a year to see if they can be increased, she ordered.

Police prosecutor Sam Papp described the embezzlement scheme as “high-end, sophisticated offending”, but she also noted that Arora was co-operative with police. The bank supported a non-custodial sentence, she said.

Arora started gambling in 2019 while unemployed in an ill-conceived effort to support his family, according to a report provided to the court before sentencing. He ended up taking out multiple loans from finance companies to pay off his losses, but the debt continued to increase significantly, Judge Bell said.

“His intention was to gamble [the embezzled ANZ money] and pay off his debt to have a normal life, but it didn’t pan out that way,” she noted.

He knew it was wrong and that he was putting his career in jeopardy but “he was in so much debt and pressure, he felt it was his last way to save his life”.

Defence lawyer Hyuk Woo argued that community detention would be the best outcome after taking into account Arora’s remorse, cultural factors, his early guilty plea and his previous good character. His family moved to New Zealand when he was a child and he was bullied, according to a report submitted to the court.

“The steps you have started to take are to be commended, Mr Arora, but you’ve got a long way to go,” she said as she rejected the community detention request but approved home detention.

Woo agreed his client’s gambling addiction was a “driving factor” in his offending. But he noted that Arora was still young and was working hard to address the issues, including having excluded himself from SkyCity.

“It’s accepted Mr Arora has committed really serious offending and has caused a serious amount of damage,” Woo said. “He’s willing to repay.”

At the current rate of repayment, however, it will take more than 25 years to do so.

This story was originally published by the New Zealand Herald