Tip of a corrupt iceberg
The Big Scam: A Stuff investigation has exposed how immigration frauds operate. How can we stop them? Steve Kilgallon and Dileepa Fonseka report.
Immigration fraud is corrupting New Zealand and the problem is getting worse, a senior Immigration New Zealand official has admitted. INZ assistant general manager Peter Devoy believes migrants are being ‘‘exploited up and down the country’’ by schemes similar to the ones uncovered in a Stuff investigation.
Critics of INZ say it is understaffed and unable to investigate scams. Our inquiry found multiple schemes in which migrants desperate to secure New Zealand residency ‘‘bought’’ jobs, or repaid their salaries under the table to employers.
Devoy says if the schemes are allowed to grow unchecked, it will lead to wider ‘‘corruption’’ in New Zealand business. ‘‘We have an element of New Zealand society which is here on a corrupt basis.’’
The Government says a review of how INZ handles migrant exploitation is a major priority. Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says ‘‘sadly, it doesn’t come as a surprise’’ how widespread the schemes are.
He has commissioned a review by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (under which INZ and the Labour Inspectorate both fall) of its migrant exploitation work and expects a report next year. ‘‘It’s something the Labour Party has been concerned about for some time,’’ he says. ‘‘We identified tackling exploitation for migrants as one of the top two priorities in the [immigration] portfolio.’’
It can be difficult to gauge precisely how many of the scams are in operation because the migrants caught in them are also breaking the law – and so are unwilling to blow the whistle, or speak to media.
Stuff found several who were prepared to be identified, despite facing deportation. Migrant workers rights’ activist Sunny Sehgal, an E tu¯ union organiser who helps run the Migrant Workers’ Association, says that’s rare, as fear has stopped effective investigations and stories in the past. ‘‘Other journalists have tried to cover this kind of story, but the people were all blurredface and not confident to talk.’’
Sehgal says he’s fielded seven complaints about Whangarei restaurateur Gurpreet Singh – a central figure in the Stuff investigation – but most wanted to remain anonymous and not make formal complaints. They were afraid of deportation, or being ostracised by the Punjabi Indian community. ‘‘But I am not here to help one individual, I am here to fix the problem forever,’’ Sehgal says. ‘‘So I only help those who are happy to fix it for other people as well.’’
The exception, he says, was one man who begged him for help and he arranged a 50 per cent rebate of the $30,000 he had paid to Gurpreet through Gurpreet’s former lieutenant, Aamir Shah. ‘‘I would say this [these cases] is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many people doing these things.’’
Devoy accepts that claim. During an interview, he unlocks his phone to show an email received just minutes earlier: another tipoff.
He says franchises dominated by specific nationality groups ‘‘would suggest that there might be something going on, and that there is a reason for that, and that they might be able to buy into those areas and dominate those areas and perhaps pay more for the franchise than the market rate because they’ve got a competitive advantage: ie they don’t have the same wage bill.’’
But while it’s difficult to get a precise figure for the number of scams, those spoken to during Stuff’s investigation are convinced the problem is substantial.
Veteran immigration lawyer Alastair McClymont believes entire industries are now reliant on exploited migrant labour. He says kiwifruit orchard owners openly tell him how much they rely on migrant labour.
‘‘They basically say that if the Indian student market dries up then there’ll simply be nobody to pick kiwifruit at all.’’
Lees-Galloway isn’t convinced the issue is that bad, but says because export markets for our primary products demand high labour rights standards, there is a risk for New Zealand around convincing them these are being met.
First Union organiser and Indian Workers Association coordinator Mandeep Singh Bela says he’s dealt with dozens of cases, resolving many of them at mediation when he confronts employers over their exploitation. The organisation’s Facebook page fields about 10 inquiries a month from exploited workers. He too was exploited, he says, working for $9 an hour, cash-in-hand, on a kiwifruit picking gang when he first arrived in New Zealand in 2009.
One member of the Auckland Indian community says that when he worked in a call-centre, securing visas by paying for them was an openly discussed topic. People shared notes on how they could do it.
He knew of at least six people in the city who had arranged visas by paying for a job and a regular amount to cover tax payments to IRD, or were