People-smuggling raid raises fears of New Zealand as an easy target

In a midnight raid, Sri Lankan police have swooped on more than 100 illegal immigrants setting sail under cover of darkness for New Zealand.

The impoverished Sri Lankans gave their life savings to a wealthy local people-smuggler who loaded them on to a fishing trawler last week, then disappeared with their money.

If successful, it would have been the first known case of a major people smuggling operation destined for New Zealand and the biggest ever single influx of illegal immigrants to our shores.

It is not yet known where the ship was hoping to land, or how the passengers were planning to get to land.

But New Zealand First MP Dail Jones warned it shows New Zealand is increasingly being known as an easy target for refugee queue jumpers.

Colombo police are hunting a local businessman, WH Fernando, who police say demanded 150,000 rupees - about NZ$2000 - from each passenger for the six-week trip to New Zealand.

A Sri Lankan police spokesman told the Herald on Sunday that the officer in charge of the small coastal town of Kalpitiya received a tip-off early last week that more than 100 people were trying to board a vessel at the town's seashore.

Thereafter the police visited the place and the people started running, the spokesman said.

Then the police managed to capture 18 people and the vessel, and the people stated that they were to be sailed to New Zealand.

The 18 illegal travellers were arrested and appeared in court last week charged with violating immigration laws. Another three people were charged with transporting them from neighbouring towns to the port.

Sri Lanka has been in the grip of a civil war for two decades since the Tamil Tiger rebels began fighting for a separate state for the 3.2 million Tamils.

The war left 65,000 people dead before a 2002 cease-fire between the Government and the rebels took hold. But peace talks have been frozen since April last year.

People smugglers have in the past targeted Italy, Japan and Australia and the Middle East, the spokesman said.

Likewise they are trying to get to New Zealand also. He had no information about whether Fernando had planned previous smuggling operations to New Zealand or anywhere else.

So far, Israeli Victor Chechelnitski is the only person ever to be convicted of people smuggling in New Zealand. He was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison in April for brining three Ukrainian nationals here on false passports.

Just last week an Australian refugee worker was arrested for supplying false documents to refugees in a bid to get them to New Zealand and Canada - considered softer on refugees than Australia.

Mr Jones said New Zealand's reputation as an easy target was heightened when we accepted Afghan refugees from the Tampa who were denied entry to Australia.

The bonus is all their relatives can subsidise their trip because they know if one gets here, the rest can follow.

But acting immigration minister Damian O'Connor rejected the notion New Zealand's borders were easy targets. "We are spending more money than ever before on border control and investigating passport fraud," he said. "We are also working to build an intelligence network."

- THE HERALD ON SUNDAY