Disgraced real estate agent Aaron Drever back in jail

Wednesday, 12 March 2025

Colourful former real estate agent and one-time “Voice of Speedway” Aaron Drever returned to prison on Wednesday after being sentenced to 15 months jail on a raft of charges.

Drever, who once boasted of career sales of $938m and making $1.5m a year as a high-flying west Auckland real estate salesman, was also once prominent as a caller at Western Springs Speedway.

However, his career came crashing down after he received the most censures ever in the history of the Real Estate Agents Authority. Bankruptcy was followed by his 2022 imprisonment on deception, forgery and dishonesty charges.

Drever was only paroled in September 2023, but had parallel charges running throughout his time in jail due a prosecution led by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). The agency confirmed his latest sentence but had no further comment on Wednesday.

The two headline charges of managing or controlling a business while bankrupt related to Drever’s role in his former girlfriend’s chain of Auckland fish and chip shops, the Fish and Chippery. Those charges drew a 15 month sentence.

A single charge of failing to provide a statement of affairs to the Official Assignee drew a six-month sentence and three charges of obtaining credit over $1000 while subject to a bankruptcy regime also drew six-month sentences, all to be served concurrently.

A sixth charge was dropped after Drever entered guilty pleas.

At the Auckland District Court on Wednesday, Judge Evangelos Thomas decided against a sentence of home detention.

The same judge jailed Drever for two years and two months in 2022 for charges that related to defrauding speedway promoter Bill Buckley’s company by using fake invoices, and negotiating the sale of a green at Avondale Bowling Club to a company he’d set up in his aunt’s name - which he then re-sold the same day at a substantial profit to a property investor.

At the time of his first sentencing, Drever told Stuff of his confidence he would beat the latest charges, saying: “We will win that”. He subsequently told a parole hearing the charges were “defendable”.

Drever had an unhappy time in his first spell in prison. While incarcerated at Ngawha Prison in Northland, he was violently assaulted by another inmate with a mental pan hook in the prison kitchens. The prison governor subsequently apologised.

Appearing before the Parole Board in September last year, Drever said he intended to live a “simple life” and become a chef.

He told the Parole Board he didn’t want to return to prison, and he’d realised his offending was “fuelled by greed and self-entitlement, and failing to understand the consequences of doing something I shouldn’t have done. My moral compass went off track and led me to where I am today”.

Drever began his 15 month sentence on Wednesday.

An earlier version of this story said Drever began his sentence on Tuesday. It was Wednesday.