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Chinese man paid $26,000 for false passport
A Chinese man faces a tough future with an 18-month jail term in New Zealand and loan sharks wanting payment of the $26,000 he paid for the false passport that got him arrested.
Hong Liu will be deported to the People?s Republic of China as soon as he has done the sentence imposed by Judge Colin Doherty in a Christchurch District Court session inside the men?s prison today.
He came from a poor region of China where he had left behind a wife and two children but defence counsel Moana Cole said he had wanted to come to New Zealand to find work.
Cole told the court: ?He borrowed money to get this passport, not from a bank but from people who will come to his family and demand the money back. He is very concerned for his family?s welfare.?
Liu pleaded guilty to the passport fraud charge after about a month in custody on remand, after his arrest when he arrived at Christchurch International Airport on a flight from Kuala Lumpur.
Police prosecutor Bronwen Skea explained to the court that migrants from the People?s Republic of China required visas to enter New Zealand but Taiwanese people did not. Liu had been refused a visa in 2008.
He was travelling with a man who filled out his arrival documents for him. He was travelling on a false Taiwanese passport and his real Chinese passport was also found when he was stopped at the airport.
Liu told police he wanted to come to New Zealand to work and Cole said there was no indication there was any other motive. She said Liu seemed naive.
Judge Doherty ruled out imposing a short term of imprisonment, noting that the maximum term was 10 years. He described it as premeditated identity fraud.
He said the price paid for the passport showed there was a market for such documents for Chinese people wanting a new life in New Zealand. The law was designed to protect New Zealand?s borders and its way of life and the sentence was intended as a deterrent.
He told Liu: ?You have your own difficulties because you have borrowed the $26,000 from sources which are not traditional lending sources, at least in this country, and I am sure they will want their pound of flesh.?
Another Chinese man arrested at the same time and charged with migrant smuggling, Chung Chen Wang, 62, was remanded in custody without plea to a post-committal conference on November 4. His defence counsel Mark Callaghan said no application for bail was being made. He has already been remanded twice, in custody at the prison, while the police seek the consent of the Attorney-General to charge him with this offence.
