Men guilty of immigration fraud

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 03/19/2014 - 01:06

A man is facing two years in prison if he returns to New Zealand, after being sentenced for creating false visa forms and misleading immigration officials.

Kamal Kishore, a New Zealand citizen, was sentenced at the Auckland District Court despite not currently being in New Zealand.

Kishore was found guilty of 13 charges of misleading an immigration officer.

The offending took place while Kishore was employed at an Auckland recruitment company that provides an employment search service to clients - predominantly to foreign nationals wanting to work in New Zealand. 

Kishore and co-offender Prem Adeep Singh worked together to create false documents, which they submitted to Immigration New Zealand in support of work visa applications for their clients. 

The clients either had no knowledge of the documents or did not know the documents were fraudulent.

Singh, also a New Zealand resident, was a licensed immigration adviser at the time, working out of an adjoining immigration consultancy business.

He was found guilty of two charges and handed 120 hours' community service. He was also ordered to pay $1500 reparation to one of his victims.

INZ's national fraud and compliance manager Bill Naik said the outcome was an "excellent result from what has been a lengthy and complex investigation".

He said it was an unusual case given that one of the defendants was not in New Zealand during the trial or at the time of sentencing.