22 March 2005

Immigrant Fraud A Big Industry

Peters Warns Campbell Of Reaction

The drivers licence fraud shown on TV3 last night has been described by Rt Hon Winston Peters as the “tip of the iceberg” in relation to offences carried out by a number of unscrupulous immigrants.

Mr Peters said today that there was widespread fraud among certain sections of the immigrant community and pointed out that New Zealand First had been warning the Government about it for the past three years.

He listed the following offences:

- Using stand-ins to sit written and practical driving tests,
- Counterfeit job offers for immigration purposes,
- Cheating in exams,
- Making false financial declarations to immigration authorities,
- Running black market seafood operations while on social welfare benefits,
- Issuing and using false examination results and fake university degrees,
- Obtaining taxi drivers licences without sitting tests,
- Using bogus interpreters to translate for examinees,
- Students setting up front companies to launder money,
- Recycling Asian women through New Zealand on visitors permits for prostitution.

“It is easy to get away with cheating in this country, particularly when you can claim ignorance of the English language and the laws.”

Mr Peters warned TV3’s John Campbell that he would soon be accused of being xenophobic and anti-Asian, which was the habitual response to these matters from the New Zealand-wide proliferation of do-gooders.

“There are probably thousands of fraudulent licences and other official documents circulating in the immigrant community and they are not investigated properly because this contravenes the cult of political correctness that infests our country,” he said.

ENDS

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