International fraudster Wayne Patterson, who ripped off the government for $3.4 million, wants release conditions about not using the internet and not being able to leave the Wairarapa relaxed.

Patterson was jailed for eight years for conning taxpayers out of $3.4 million in benefit money. He created 123 false identities and was collecting benefits from them. At one point he was receiving $54,000 a fortnight.

Once in prison he got a further nine months for attempting to escape and escaping.

MINISTRY OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Property seized from benefit fraudster Wayne Patterson under the proceeds of crime act. story on proceeds of crime

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Last year he got sentenced for the third time for another two years for two charges of forgery, two of using forged documents and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

He had sent forged letters to the Parole Board about a job offer with the Carterton District Council on a council letterhead.

Patterson was released earlier this year after serving his sentences and Corrections applied to have release conditions imposed upon him.

Among the conditions were that he not leave the Wairarapa where he is living, that he not have a device capable to connecting to the internet and if he is allowed one that it must be turned over to be searched by Corrections or any nominated person.

Patterson is appealing the imposition of the conditions.

Justice Joe Williams at the High Court in Wellington on Tuesday was not sure about the internet conditions.

"I have some sympathy with the internet being oxygen these days," he told Patterson's lawyer Doug Ewen.

However he said he also understood given that one of the ways Patterson committed his fraud was electronically.

Patterson had created the fake identities and bank account details for them online.

Ewen said it was accepted that some restrictions on travel were necessary like a released prisoner not being able to go to a place where they might encounter a victim but not just locking him into never leaving the Wairarapa.

Corrections lawyer Charlotte Brook said the conditions, like one where he had to provide the registration of any vehicles he used, were because of how he offended, like driving around the country in disguise to different Work and Income offices so he would not be identified.

The judge reserved his decision.

Patterson served jail time in Australia and America for fraud offences. In Australia he had conned $A500,000 ($NZ592,900) in benefits using 43 false identities and was jailed for eight years but was extradited to New Zealand after serving three. In 1991 he was arrested in America and jailed for eight years for defrauding authorities of $US2 million.

He served three years in America before being deported back to New Zealand but returned there on a false passport.

He was extradited to New Zealand in 2002, prosecuted for offences he committed in 1998 and sentenced to home detention.

Within a month of ending his sentence in June 2003, he began offending again.

When police raided Patterson's modest rented flat in Auckland, they found nearly $700,000 in $50 notes buried in the garden, $184,333 cash in the flat and in his car, and gold bars worth $355,000, also hidden in the flat.

They also found 137 automatic teller machine cards, 102 forged birth certificates, 56 community service cards, 79 superannuation cards and 125 Inland Revenue cards.

The cards were all in the names of the false identities used to obtain the fraudulent benefits.

There was so much art in the flat there was not room to hang it all. The rented flat had been fitted with a sophisticated security camera and had six computers to allow Patterson to keep track of his fraud and false accounts.

There was a marble master bedroom suite, tropical fish and a lavish garden with $50,000 worth of plants.