Consultant skips country with migrants' passports

By NICOLA BOYES

A Fijian Indian immigration consultant has skipped the country with more than 12 immigrants' passports, leaving them $90,000 out of pocket and some facing overstayer status.

It is the second case of alleged fraud by an immigration consultant to come to light in the past month.

Four weeks ago, a consultant vanished with thousands of dollars and passports belonging to Chinese students who had paid to study at Auckland University.

Police are investigating Azaz Alfaz Ali, who had an office in Manukau.

Auckland immigration lawyer David Bahadur is representing 12 migrants who gave Ali money, documents and their passports in the hope of getting their applications processed through the Immigration Service faster.

Between them they had handed over about $90,000 to Ali, who vanished this week taking their passports and paperwork with him, said Mr Bahadur.

Ali is believed to have fled to Fiji, leaving at least three clients facing overstayer status because he had not processed their paperwork.

Mr Bahadur said he had been fielding calls from worried migrants since Tuesday, when they went to Ali's office and found it closed.

All had given Ali varying amounts of money for applications ranging from visitors permits to residency.

Ali had charged them between $2000 and $11,000. Most immigration consultants charged between $500 and $1000, Mr Bahadur said.

Immigration Minister Paul Swain said the case highlighted why the Government was in the process of regulating consultants.