Serious Fraud Office (New Zealand)

Serious Fraud Office Te Tari Hara Tāware
Logo of Serious Fraud Office
Abbreviation	SFO
Agency overview
Formed	1990
Annual budget	NZ$9,719,000 (Total budget for 2019/20)[1]
Jurisdictional structure
Operations jurisdiction	New Zealand
Constituting instrument	Serious Fraud Office Act 1990
Specialist jurisdictions	Serious or complex fraud, commercial crime, fraud covering multiple lower level jurisdictions. Anti-corruption
Operational structure
Headquarters	Level 8, 188 Quay Street, Auckland AUCKLAND 1010 [2]
Elected officer responsible	Hon Mark Mitchell, Minister of Police
Agency executive	Karen Chang, chief executive and director
Website
www.sfo.govt.nz

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO; Māori: Te Tari Hara Tāware) is the public service department of New Zealand charged with detecting, investigating and prosecuting financial crimes, including corruption, of a serious and complex nature.

The SFO is New Zealand's lead law enforcement agency for investigating and prosecuting serious financial crime, including bribery and corruption. The Auckland-based agency has about 50 employees of which 90 percent perform front-line activities. It has statutory independence as operational decisions are made without ministerial direction. The agency is based upon its UK counterpart as established by the Serious Fraud Office Act 1990.^[3] The SFO was established as a response to the collapse of the capital markets following the stock market crash in 1987.