Big Read: How immigration fraudster Loraine Jayme got 17 migrants to NZ on fake jobs

A woman convicted of 284 immigration fraud charges has revealed in detail how she managed to get 17 Filipinos into the country on fake job offers.

She's also revealed her fears for her newborn daughter who she fell pregnant with after she was arrested.

In a frank, never-before-published interview, Loraine Jayme sat down with the Herald when she was five months pregnant with her third child at her Waikato home in October last year.

"I told [my lawyer] I was worried [Immigration NZ] might think the pregnancy was planned," Jayme said.

"We were not really planning to have any more kids.

"But I got pregnant, I'm just a stay-at-home mum, so yeah. We're not doing any pregnancy prevention, we [Filipinos] don't do that."

Already a mother of two, Filipino-born Jayme, 36, was charged in October 2015, fell pregnant in the middle of last year and had baby Karys in December, two months premature.

Here is her story.

Landing in New Zealand

Jayme joined her husband, Vincent, in New Zealand in 2006. She was 25 and had no children.

She brought skills with her - she says she has a masters degree in media communication, a bachelor of science and a masters in business and administration.

Vincent Jayme had moved from the Philippines a year earlier and got a job on a South Island farm before moving to Paeroa.

The couple stayed there for two years before heading to Te Aroha in 2008 after Vincent landed a contract milking job while Jayme, pregnant with their first child, began doing freelance online writing jobs and relief work in early childhood.

In late 2011, Jayme says she began getting contacted by friends and family in the Philippines asking how they could get a job like her husband's in New Zealand.

"I said 'Okay, send me your CV'."

She says she found employers on farms who were in need of workers and put them in touch with the person in search for work.

"It was pretty easy then," she said.

"If you had some farm experience or a few weeks' training you could apply as a dairy assistant."

As word began to spread, her numbers grew.

Costs began adding up so she started charging, with clients eventually paying $2250 - equivalent to 76,000 Filipino pesos - each, she said.

The average monthly wage in the Philippines is 9508 pesos.

The lawyer acting for the Ministry of Business and Employment, Catherine Milnes, said today 76,000 pesos was the equivalent of eight months' wages and some had to be borrowed by migrants at a very high lending rate.

Loraine Anne Jayme during her sentencing in the Hamilton District Court today. Photo/Alan Gibson

'I panicked'

In late 2014, the employers, mostly based in the South Island, approached Jayme saying some of the workers couldn't speak English very well and weren't as skilled as their CVs had purported, Jayme said.

"They're saying, 'This person didn't seem to have experience at all as what the CV shows because he couldn't handle the cattle or milk'. So some employers who have already confirmed they will hire, back out."

At the end of 2014, Jayme said the dairy payout had also dropped dramatically from around $8 to $5, meaning farmers weren't so keen to hire as many employees.

"So I panicked. That's what happened."

She began to tell her applicants that employers were pulling out of hiring.

"Of course they are devastated, they say, 'But we have already spent so much', and, 'We were expecting that we would already be earning money and be able to pay off our debts'," Jayme said.

Laden with guilt, Jayme said she decided to press ahead.

She began creating fake jobs offers at companies she invented, including AJM Farming, Kinvarra Farms and Mathan Farms in Southland and KG Farms in Northland.

Her ruse to help her fellow compatriots got more elaborate the deeper she dug herself into her hole.

She created fake documentation and emails from her fake companies which described the non-existent jobs and sent them to Work and Income, Immigration NZ and the Inland Revenue Department.

She approached Work and Income, claiming to represent the companies, asking if there were any suitable local applicants for the fake jobs.

A temporary work visa is only issued to a migrant if genuine attempts have been made locally and it is impossible for the position to be filled by Kiwi workers.

Jayme was offering an income of $38,000 per year, shared accommodation and said workers needed at least two years' dairy experience.

Work and Income confirmed to her each time that there was no labour available.

Letters were then included in the migrants' visa application and sent to Immigration.

The charges against Jayme related to 17 workers who came to New Zealand based on fake job offers and applications she helped with.

Deceit unravelled

Jayme told the Herald her plan was to get the workers into the country on the fake job offers and then apply for a visa variation after finding them work on real farms.

But her deceit began to unravel in late 2014.

Immigration said today its investigation began after staff verifying visa applications identified anomalies in visa applications and a Southland farmer reported migrants claiming he had offered them work without his knowledge.

The prosecution focused on five non-existent dairy farms and fictitious employers created by Jayme through "a complex series of forged documents, submitted to both INZ and other New Zealand agencies".

Jayme told the Herald she started to get phone calls by some of the migrants telling her authorities had been asking them questions.

Then, one morning in October 2015, when she and her daughter were still in bed, she heard a persistent knocking at her front door.

It was police and Immigration staff, coming to arrest her.

In August last year she pleaded guilty to the 284 fraud charges including altering a document, using an altered document, forgery, using a forged document, obtaining by deception, aiding and abetting and provision of false or misleading information.

Vincent Jayme, left, leaves the Hamilton District Court today with supporters after his wife's sentencing. Photo/Belinda Feek

'My goal was to help them'

Jayme's sentencing had been due back in October, but it was then adjourned till December and then today when she was sentenced at the Hamilton District Court to 11 months' two weeks home detention and 180 hours' community work.

She'd said to the Herald last year: "The longer the wait, the longer the agony for me".

"I'm not that monster."

Before this, she had never seen the inside of a court room before.

Although she admits her crime was misguided, she claims her motive was to help people.

"My goal was to help them, that we were doing a good thing," Jayme said.

"We did not come from a well-off family in the Philippines. We are not rich but we eat three times a day so my goal is to help . . . I did something wrong. I was pressured but it's not an excuse. That's one of my problems, I find it hard to say no."

She said the only positive to come out of it was that the 17 Filipinos who she helped come over were still working, successfully, in New Zealand.

'Tip of the iceberg'

But Peter Devoy, Immigration NZ's assistant general manager, said the department didn't believe the offending was limited to just 17 applicants.

"Jayme systematically ripped off vulnerable migrant workers. Although these charges are very serious we believe they only represent the tip of the iceberg of Jayme's offending."

He said the victims weren't so much the 17 Filipinos who have since continued to live successfully in New Zealand, rather everyday Kiwis.

"The situation from our point of view is that the victim here is very much the New Zealand citizen. It's the systems that Immigration have in place to protect New Zealand, to protect the border, which have been the subject of the offending more so than the 17 victims named in the case."

In sentencing today, MBIE lawyer Christine Milnes said Jayme had told probation staff she had helped up to 100 people get into New Zealand.

Judge Kim Saunders said although that maybe the case, she could only take into account the 17 workers referred to in the summary of facts.

Jayme pictured outside court in February last year. Photo/Belinda Feek

Guilty for my baby

In December, Karys was born, weighing just 1080g (1.08kg). She spent two months in Waikato Hospital.

Jayme told the Herald last week she felt guilty Karys was now caught up in the drama.

She had been worried about what would happen to her.

"I'm the primary caregiver. I breastfeed [baby] and my husband works, so I don't know what's going to happen. I really don't know."

She had said that the prospect of jail frightened her and her family so much they couldn't bear to talk about it, let alone plan for it.

"I'm praying [I won't] but I am not even ready . . . I dunno, I can't even accept that. It's too scary to even talk about it.

"It doesn't seem real. I was asking my husband, 'What can I bargain to God for me not to go to jail'. It's not for me, it's for my family."

Corrections said staff worked with home detention offenders on a case-by-case basis.

Any offender can access medical services and will be given approved absences to do so.

Jayme didn't want any family to attend court today, but they did, including her husband.

She said her nerves had been so bad, her blood pressure had been through the roof.