Prolink NZ has been under investigation by Immigration NZ for more than a year. Photo: RNZ / Lucy Xia
An Auckland-based labour hire company at the centre of a migrant exploitation investigation is in liquidation, and 190 workers - mostly migrants on work visas - are set to lose their jobs.
Prolink NZ was under investigation by Immigration New Zealand (INZ) as early as September last year, after complaints from workers who say they have been cheated thousands of dollars, but have had little to non full-time work.
Licensed Insolvency Practitioner Pritesh Patel was appointed by Prolink NZ to liquidate the company on Wednesday.
Workers received letters from Patel saying that "further employment is no longer available with the company".
Patel said there were many factors that caused the company to go insolvent, including the loss of a major contract with My Food Bag.
Patel was appointed by Haiyan Luo (Shirley) Luo, who is now co-director of the company alongside Shaojun (Jerry) Han. Luo owns 100 percent of the company's shares as of late November this year, while previously Han held all the shares.
Luo had previously been jailed for tax evasion and providing false information to immigration authorities, and earlier this year introduced herself to workers as the "operations manager" at Prolink NZ and the person who makes the call on decisions.
Patel said the company currently has about $75,000 left on its bank account, after $80,000 was withdrawn by one of its directors two weeks ago.
Patel said he was looking into the circumstances of that withdrawal, which he considered to have no justification.
He said the company also owned four vehicles, including a Porsche and a Tesla through finance.
Patel said the Porsche was sold recently, and he was investigating who is was sold to.
Concerns for workers' welfare
Patel said he understood there were about 190 workers for Prolink NZ, and the majority of them were on Accredited Employer Work Visas. He said there were about 40 Vietnamese workers, and the rest are Chinese.
He said he had been having "sleepless nights" about the workers' livelihoods, with little work available over Christmas.
"I have concerns about their position, so close to Christmas, I'm also mindful of the fact that every business at the moment is going to be shutting down for Christmas, New Year, what is their position going to be, so I'm hoping that the immigration department is going to look at their situation quite favourably in [this] transition."
Patel said his top priority is to secure sufficient funds from the company's assets to pay any owed wages and holiday pay.
The workers are offered preferential claim, coming before other creditors, including IRD and three to four other creditors.
He said he has reached out to the Ministry of Social Development and Rotary Botany Downs to assist the workers with food parcels in the meantime.
"It's quite sad, and the worst part is these employees really can't communicate with me because i can understand the language issue…it's quite sad and they don't know what's happening, so I've got this chinese lawyer to reach out to them," said Patel.
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