Big blitz to trap migrant cheats

Private investigators are being used to track down immigration cheats in a new $1 million drive to stamp out fraud, particularly in Auckland.

The Immigration Service yesterday confirmed it has expanded its Auckland-based fraud unit for June, and is after cheats such as those arranging fake marriages.

Migrant communities linked to specific frauds are being focused on, but Immigration Service head Mary Anne Thompson would not identify them.

"It's a big push. I want us to be less passive and more active," she said.

Ms Thompson denied suggestions by New Zealand First leader Winston Peters that the expanded fraud unit was new or that the push on fraud was linked to his election-year promise to introduce "flying squads" to target migrant crime and make random checks on migrants.

However, Mr Peters' party has enjoyed a resurgence in poll ratings coinciding with his recent attacks on several Iraqi migrants whom he claims have links to Saddam Hussein's ousted regime.

The Immigration Service's fraud unit expanded its work using two private investigation firms from June 1 with an emphasis on Auckland problems. There are usually 13 staff in the unit, but with the use of contracted investigators numbers will temporarily swell to around 30.

Ms Thompson told the Herald she had diverted $1 million from money not spent in the last financial year for the drive on fraud. That is on top of about $17 million a year already spent on fraud-related investigations.

She said there were 50 to 60 current cases, possibly more, which needed investigation, prompting her decision to dedicate more money to the problem.

 

"Some of the cases have been worrying us. If we need more evidence we need to go out there and get it."

She said most of the frauds involved residency applications and family members.

There was evidence individuals were organising scams, telling people they could get families into New Zealand, and it was those people she wanted her unit to target.

"It's one thing to go for the individuals who are trying to [do] this. But my view is we should get the organisers and make a big deal of it and get them out of the country."

She said anyone caught would be prosecuted, and their own residency status examined.

Mr Peters revealed the expanded work of the unit at a parliamentary select committee hearing yesterday, when he and Immigration Minister Paul Swain clashed over the NZ First proposal for flying squads.

Mr Peters accused Mr Swain of being "scathing" about the flying squads while setting up just such a unit himself.

Mr Swain responded: "The idea of some kind of hit squad, charging around the countryside, running over people's gardens and knocking their door down is not part of the policy."

Ms Thompson told the committee that immigration officials tracking fraudsters would actively look for people.

"We do go into workplaces and occasionally we will knock on somebody's door, that's true."

She said later that Immigration officials last week went to an Auckland garage about which concerns had been raised, and found two Indonesian overstayers.

Mr Swain defended the development of a new "undesirable" category of immigrants.

The category came under fire from Green MP Keith Locke, who said: "Someone's past could be held against them even if they don't actually present a danger to society."

But Mr Swain said the new category would use a definition of undesirable linked to international conventions on war crimes, human rights abuses and crimes against humanity.

- additional reporting NZPA