A New Zealand citizen of Indian origin faces immediate arrest if he returns to this country.
The Auckland District Court sentenced Kamal Kishore to a prison term of two years on March 19, 2014, after finding him guilty of 13 charges of misleading an immigration officer of Immigration New Zealand (INZ).
His co-offender Prem Adeep Singh, also a New Zealand resident, was found guilty of two charges and was sentenced to 120 hours’ community service and ordered to pay $1500 reparation to one of his victims.
According to an INZ press statement, the offending took place while Kishore was employed at an Auckland recruitment company that provides an employment search service to clients – predominantly foreign nationals wanting to work in New Zealand.
Singh was a licensed immigration adviser at the time, working out of an adjoining immigration consultancy business.
“Kishore and Singh worked together to create false documents which they submitted to Immigration New Zealand in support of work visa applications for their clients. The clients either had no knowledge of the documents or did not know the documents were fraudulent,” the press statement said.
INZ National Fraud and Compliance Manager Bill Naik described the sentences as ‘great result’ particularly since one of the defendants was not in the country during the trial and at the time of sentencing.
“The offending in this case was deliberate and premeditated and involved significant breaches of trust. The sentences imposed reflect the seriousness of the offending. This is an excellent result from what has been a lengthy and complex investigation,” Mr Naik said.
