A couple has been charged with people trafficking after they tricked immigration into letting two Bangladeshi people enter the country.
Photo: 123rf.com
The couple - who are Bangladeshi with New Zealand citizenship - appeared at the Auckland District Court today.
One defendant faces another 28 charges and one faces 11 charges, Immigration New Zealand said.
The charges relate to exploitation of five workers on temporary visas, providing false and misleading information to immigration officers, breaching visa conditions and perverting the course of justice.
People trafficking charges are punishable with imprisonment up to 20 years, a $500,000 fine or both, while the other charges carry sentences of up to seven years and fines of $100,000.
The couple, who have interim name suppression, have been remanded on bail until next month.
The victims also have name suppression.
NZ's people trafficking history
Immigration New Zealand brought the first people trafficking charges in New Zealand in August 2015.
In that case, two men were charged for arranging by deception the entry of Indian nationals into New Zealand.
They were both found not guilty of the trafficking charges, but one was convicted on other charges. A third person was found guilty of other charges at the same trial but did not face the trafficking charges.
Immigration NZ said the first person to be convicted of people trafficking, Faroz Ali, was sentenced in December 2016 to a total of nine years and six months in jail and ordered to pay a total of $28,167 reparation to his victims.
Ali, also known as Feroz Ali, a Fijian national with New Zealand residence, was convicted of 15 human trafficking charges in a scam that enticed and exploited Fijians to work in New Zealand.