Maximum penalty for scammer
A judge says a dishonest immigration adviser who ran a fakejobs scam exposed by Stuff should never be allowed to hold an adviser’s licence again.
Peter Graeme Ryan, the head of Wellington firm Capital Immigration Services, has copped the maximum possible punishment for operating an elaborate visa scam – and the chairman of the sentencing tribunal said that if he could have banned Ryan for life, he would have.
In 2018, as part of the Big Scam series investigating corruption in the immigration sector, Stuff exposed a scheme run by Ryan and a Whangarei restaurateur, Gurpreet Singh. Indian migrants were charged premiums to secure non-existent jobs with Ryan’s fake IT consultancy Bite Consulting NZ/BC International, then had to return their salaries in cash and bank transfers.
In one case, migrant Karamjeet Singh (unrelated) was told he’d get a $42,000-a-year IT job in Wellington if he paid $35,000 to Ryan – but the job never existed. Instead, he had to work a cash job in an Auckland factory, while returning his Bite wages – plus extra, to cover the tax. He later withdrew his residency application.
Ryan also handled immigration paperwork for other migrants who said they had been exploited by Gurpreet Singh.
The Immigration Advisers Authority brought charges against Ryan in relation to six of the migrants. Karamjeet Singh complained on his own behalf.
An Immigration Advisers Complaints and Disciplinary Tribunal hearing in November found Ryan guilty of breaching the Immigration Advisers Code and the 2009 Immigration Act by knowingly providing false information to Immigration NZ. Ryan refused to give evidence, but through his lawyer, said Stuff’s stories about him were untrue.
Now tribunal chairman David Plunkett has issued Ryan’s punishment for the offending. Plunkett gave Ryan the maximum penalty for both sets of offending – two $10,000 fines, and also ordered Ryan to repay fees of $4335 to Karamjeet and contribute $5000 towards the costs of the investigation.
In its submissions, the authority argued for ‘‘punitive’’ sanctions and the maximum $10,000 fine and two-year ban.
Karamjeet asked for $147,500 in compensation. About $43,000 of that was payments to Ryan and Singh, $6500 in fees, $45,000 for ‘‘stress’’ and the rest in lost earnings.
In both cases, Ryan’s lawyer Val Nisbet agreed with the authority’s suggested penalties – $20,000 in fines, $5000 in costs, and he also offered to pay Karamjeet $10,000 for ‘‘emotional harm’’.
But the tribunal refused that, ruling Karamjeet should not get the money because he was a ‘‘willing party’’ to the fraud. Karamjeet – who returned to India in December 2018 – denied that, saying it was only after four months that he realised the scheme was illegal and he had been tricked. He said that Ryan’s punishment was ‘‘not enough’’.
In his judgment, Plunkett wrote that his verdict had to show the ‘‘severest denunciation’’ of Ryan’s conduct.
He said there were no mitigating factors. ‘‘If it was possible to prohibit Mr Ryan from reapplying for a licence for life, I would do so. Mr Ryan should never regain an immigration adviser’s licence.’’ Instead, Ryan can reapply in two years.