Cash for student jobs scam uncovered

The Immigration Service has launched a major investigation into a cash-for-jobs scam allegedly involving hundreds of students, as well as employers and Immigration staff.

The immigration scam was uncovered by self-styled justice campaigner Dermot Nottingham, who spent eight months secretly filming meetings with the operators after he himself was recruited out of the blue and offered $10,000 to provide a false job offer.

Nottingham filmed a Chinese businessman, Alex Ho, and an associate, Krishna Kumar Pusarla, a liquor store manager, at meetings in which $16,000 in cash was paid to Nottingham on behalf of two students who knew the jobs were fake.

The Sunday Star-Times listened in to some of the conversations.

The students needed job offers in skilled work to gain the points necessary to apply for permanent residency.

Ho was allegedly taking up to $30,000 from the students and promising them residency if they went through with the scam, while Pusarla and others searched for employers willing to take part, receiving a cut of the profits.

The scam involved the students paying their own weekly wages, the employer then paying the PAYE tax and depositing the rest into the student's account to give the appearance of a legitimate job.

Ho told the Star-Times last week he did immigration consultancy, helping students get work permits, but had never broken the law.

Pusarla said he had introduced people to employers with job vacancies, but had not taken money for it.

Immigration Minister Clayton Cosgrove said the allegations were "being treated seriously at the highest level".

He said although there was no "concrete evidence" of corrupt Immigration employees, "if staff have acted inappropriately they will be dealt with".

"An investigation is underway at an operational level and I'm awaiting the outcome of that, pending that we'll look at whether there needs to be a tightening up of any areas," Cosgrove said.

Mary Anne Thompson, the Department of Labour's deputy secretary of workforce, said department investigators had met with Nottingham and were interviewing the two students.

Nottingham has agreed to hand over all his tapes, which contain at least three hours of footage.

In one of the tapes, Ho claims to have a senior contact within Immigration who feeds him information and tips him off if the department is getting close.

He did not name the person, but gave their job title.

Chinese publisher Lincoln Tan said such scams were common.

"I do get approached on-and-off by students offering money [for a job offer], upwards of $10,000, I tell them not to do it."

Tan said a lot of them were desperate for a New Zealand passport and for many of them, money was not an issue.

He said foreign students were also discriminated against by employers.

National's immigration spokesperson Lockwood Smith, who has met with Nottingham and been told how the scam works, said he had heard "bits and pieces" of information about such scams, but had never been able to get to the bottom of it.

"It's good that Dermot has done it."

- © Fairfax NZ News