A New Zealand woman was accused of stealing her mother's savings to invest in cryptocurrency, and then suspected of murdering her mother and faking the scene of her death

PANews reported on July 15 that according to The Block, the Wellington High Court in New Zealand heard a case of matricide involving cryptocurrency investment. The 53-year-old defendant Julia DeLuney was charged with murdering her 79-year-old mother Helen Gregory on January 24, 2024, and faking the scene of the fall. The prosecutor accused her of transferring at least 156,000 New Zealand dollars (about 94,000 US dollars) from her mother's account to the cryptocurrency platform within a year before the incident, of which only 88,000 New Zealand dollars were recovered, with a loss of 68,000 New Zealand dollars.

Court evidence showed that the deceased had told his friends that his daughter had used the 85,000 New Zealand dollars hidden in his home to invest in cryptocurrencies without his consent. The forensic accountant confirmed that the defendant's main source of income was cryptocurrency withdrawals, cash deposits and transfers from his mother, and his bank account had been in a state of deficit for a long time. The defense claimed that the police had "tunnel vision" and that someone else committed a crime while the defendant was away from home for 90 minutes to seek help. The case is still under trial.