Jail for smuggling Indonesians on false papers

An Indonesian man was yesterday jailed for 4 1/2 years for smuggling people into the country using forged passports.

Napier District Court was told that Deny Setiadi, 27, was paid about $8000 by each of the men who were found living in Hawkes Bay last August, most of them in a house in Wycliffe St, Napier.

It is understood that they have since been deported to Indonesia.

Setiadi pleaded guilty in February to seven counts of aiding another person to remain in New Zealand unlawfully.

On May 2, he pleaded guilty to a further four counts of aiding another person to enter NZ unlawfully and four counts of arranging for an unauthorised migrant to enter the country.

Immigration Service fraud investigator John Marston told an earlier hearing the men, mostly in their 20s and 30s, had paid the money to get to New Zealand, believing they could get legal jobs.

"That's their life savings for these people, who were mostly ordinary village people," he said.

Setiadi is the second person to be convicted for people smuggling under the Crimes Act.

In 2004, Victor Chechelnitski, an Israeli citizen, was jailed for three years for smuggling in three Ukrainian nationals on false Israeli passports.

The Department of Labour's border security group manager, Api Fiso, said Setiadi's heavy sentence was proof that the authorities regarded people-smuggling "very seriously" and were actively prosecuting perpetrators.

"We believe this sentence sends a clear message that we are not prepared to tolerate these activities in New Zealand."

The department was continuing to target people-smuggling activities in New Zealand, he said.

New Zealand was lucky in some respects because it was geographically quite isolated, Mr Fiso said.

"The fact that we don't have land borders means it's harder for people-smugglers to get in."

- NZPA