MEDIA release
19 march 2014
Man sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for misleading INZ

A man sentenced today to two years’ imprisonment for misleading an immigration officer faces immediate arrest should he return to New Zealand.

Kamal Kishore, a New Zealand citizen, was sentenced at Auckland District Court despite not currently being in New Zealand, after being found guilty of 13 charges of misleading an immigration officer.

Kishore’s co-offender, Prem Adeep Singh, a New Zealand resident, was found guilty of two charges and was sentenced to 120 hours’ community service and ordered to pay $1,500 reparation to one of his victims.

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.

INZ’s National Fraud and Compliance Manager Bill Naik says the sentences are a great result, particularly given the unusual circumstances of one of the defendants not being in New Zealand during the trial or 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.”

ENDS

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