International Cooperation Catches Immigration Fraudster

Landmark cooperation between New Zealand, Canadian, US and British authorities has seen a Somali woman with at least three identities sentenced to nine months home detention today.

A woman going by the name of Raha Ali Abdi was sentenced at the Auckland District Court after being convicted on two charges of supplying information she knew was false and misleading to Immigration New Zealand (INZ) officials.

Ms Abdi lied when trying to claim asylum and the right to work in New Zealand in 2007 and 2008. She told officials that she was not known by any other name and that she had lived in Somalia from birth until January 2007 when she fled Somalia via Kenya and arrived in New Zealand on 22 April 2007.

However, there was no record of Ms Abdi’s arrival in New Zealand. INZ found that her fingerprints matched those of a person who had entered Canada, the United States of America and the United Kingdom using different names.

INZ’s Identity Services manager Jacqui Martin says this is the first time evidence like fingerprints gathered as a result of cooperation under the Five Countries Conference (FCC) has been used in a prosecution for immigration fraud.

“The FCC brings together officials from New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States and Australia to work together to improve our immigration systems’ security, service and efficiency.”

Since 2010 INZ has been able to store and use biometric data, including fingerprints, which we can use to check against INZ’s FCC partners’ data.

“This case shows how FCC data sharing and our high-tech scanners are improving our detection of immigration fraud,” says Ms Martin.

ENDS

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