Migrants foiled over fake claims

More than 120 immigrants have been caught using fake qualifications to embellish their backgrounds in the past 18 months.

Figures obtained under the Official Information Act from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority show that 42 applications were forged, false or altered in the six months to January.

From July 2000 to June last year, 80 applications were turned down for being false.

The authority has a specialist unit of 70 people dedicated to cross-checking qualifications.

Most problem documents come from India, Bangladesh, China and South Africa.

The authenticity of immigrant qualifications has been thrown into the spotlight after the sacking of Maori Television Service chief Canadian John Davy.

Police have been called in to investigate Mr Davy for alleged fraud after he falsified his credentials. These included a MBA degree from the Ashland School of Business at Denver State University which does not exist except as a name used on counterfeit credentials sold over the internet.

In the six months to January the authority checked and verified the backgrounds of more than 4000 people. The authority had another 2600 applications awaiting verification of one or more qualifications in mid-February.

The authority does not keep records of the average time it takes to check an application, but it will try for 10 months and make up to three requests from education institutions to verify them.

Qualifications evaluation manager Mary Neazor said the level of forgery was getting sophisticated because of improving technology and internet use.

The communications manager of the authority, Bill Lennox, said it had a three-step system for checking qualifications.

This involved making sure the institution existed, checking that the qualification existed within that institution and then whether it had actually been awarded to the person concerned.

"For example, sometimes someone might have a qualification from a university that exists, but the qualification hasn't been offered for 20 years and they say they got it just a year ago."

Ms Neazor said staff regularly attended seminars overseas on the latest forgery techniques and the authority was linked to several international networks.

She believed the authority's checks operated well and identified false credentials. The authority would alert police and other agencies if a problem was found.

"For us the quality of checks is the most important thing to ensure New Zealand's interests are protected."

- NZPA

Feature: Immigration