Busy passport fraudster busted

Donald Chilcott. Photo / Otago Daily Times

A Dunedin man has admitted using a New Zealand passport in the name of another man to travel to and from the United States dozens of times in the past decade.

Donald Bruce Chilcott, 71, yesterday pleaded guilty in the Dunedin District Court to 11 charges of using a false travel document and two of false representation to obtain a passport.

The charges related to Chilcott's use of another Dunedin man's identification to apply for a passport in his own name, using it to take multiple trips to the United States and Sydney and one to Tahiti, and renewing it last year.

Chilcott's crimes were discovered in June, when fingerprinting by US border officials in Los Angeles revealed he was not Donald Edward McRobie, as it said on his passport.

Chilcott was deported to Auckland.

The police summary of facts presented in court said it was not known how much Chilcott used the passport or why he had it.

But he told the Otago Daily Times he had been flying to and from the US since 1975.

The trips were to find vehicles for his Auckland-based car import business, and gradually grew into longer stays abroad, until he was frequently overstaying in the United States - once for up to two years.

Officials had warned him about overstaying, but had not stopped him until after a work visit to Canada in the late 1990s, when he was stopped at the US border, identified as an overstayer, fingerprinted and denied entry.

He returned to New Zealand from Vancouver.

It was then that he took what he described as a "desperate" measure, so he could keep his business going.

"I knew I'd never get back in [to the United States], so I found someone who I paid $500 for a birth certificate, and that's how I got it [the passport].

"It was desperation. I could not think of another way ... I didn't get it to do anything crooked.

"Until I was caught, I never thought there was anything majorly wrong with what I was doing. It wasn't causing any harm."

When contacted, Mr McRobie, now 77, did not want to comment.

A relative said he was "terribly upset" when he discovered in June someone had been using his identity.

Chilcott said he accepted what he had done was serious.

"I never even realised how serious it was until I got off the plane at Auckland and the police said it was very, very serious. I never, ever thought about it."

Chilcott, now retired, was remanded on bail for sentencing on September 22.

- Otago Daily Times