It found internal fraud and corruption were almost certainly being under-reported. The 446 alleged incidents recorded, ranged from misconduct to potentially serious criminal behaviour — but these incidents only involved internal or insider threats, rather than external fraud involving public funds. The taskforce said if extrapolated across the wider public sector, the true number of incidents could be in the thousands. The pilot showed some agencies were not reporting alleged or attempted internal fraud and corruption to law enforcement. The taskforce estimates fraud losses to the public sector could potentially be between $823 million and $10.24 billion.

Source: Otago Daily Times February 22, 2026 22:02 UTC