Travel agent issued ‘fake flight tickets’

An Auckland travel company run by a former bankrupt allegedly sold fake airfares before going into liquidation, owing creditors more than $230,000, a liquidator’s report says.

Travel Globe, incorporated in January 2015, is owned and directed by Jujhar Singh.

His wife, Harvinder Kaur, had been director and shareholder until late December.

Imran Kamal, who was appointed liquidator of Travel Globe on January 8, said in his first liquidator’s report that Singh resolved to put the company into liquidation.

Singh, born in 1969, is a former bankrupt, having been discharged in 2011.

In 2017 Singh liquidated another company Binde Enterprises after a Labour Inspectorate investigation found the company had exploited 75 workers on a vegetable farm in the Bombay Hills. Binde Enterprises at the time was ordered to pay almost $430,000 in penalties and arrears.

A first liquidator’s report said Travel Globe had $50,000 in fixed assets.

It owed three secured creditors a total of at least $10,400.

It owed two preferential creditors an unknown sum and it owed more than 100 unsecured creditors more than $200,000, $26,000 of which was an overdraft with BNZ.

A number of customers had paid for travel or paid deposits and some had refunds owing, the report said.

‘‘Customers have not been issued tickets and some have been issued fake tickets.

‘‘This is extremely concerning, and the liquidator will take appropriate action.’’

Kamal said he had been able to get hold of financial statements which showed the company had been trading insolvent ‘‘for an extended period’’. It was too early to say when the liquidation process would be completed, he said.