Bogus agents prey on Fijians seeking asylum

Bogus migration agents are preying on Fijians seeking asylum in Australia, including the family of a man who committed suicide at a Sydney detention centre last month.

Josefa Rauluni, 36, leaped off the roof of Villawood centre hours before he was due to deported, in a tragedy witnessed by other detainees including his teenage nephew, Eddie. He had claimed political asylum, saying he feared persecution by the Fijian military if forced to return home.

His family told ABC Television's Lateline programme this week that, before Rauluni died, they paid A$2000 ($2613) to Jolame Nale, a Sydney-based Fijian who approached them saying he was a pastor. Nale promised to get Rauluni and his nephew out of detention, but did little to help, they claimed.

The ABC said it had learned of at least three other unregistered Fijian agents posing as pastors to swindle their devoutly Christian countrymen. Usaia Waqatairewa, of the Australian-based Fiji Democracy and Freedom Movement, says hundreds of would-be immigrants have lost money.

Rauluni arrived in Australia two years ago and worked at a chicken factory in Griffith, western New South Wales, where many Pacific Islanders are employed by farmers and growers. After his bridging visa expired, he was picked up by immigration authorities and sent to Villawood.

During frantic efforts to prevent him and Eddie from being deported, his family received a call from Nale, who told them his fee was A$2000.

"He said ... he'll help them come out of Villawood," said Rauluni's brother, Tevita.

Nale then rang Tevita again and said: "There's two of them, it's got to be A$5000 each." When Tevita asked whether the money was for citizenship papers, Nale replied that it was for a bridging visa. Soon after, he stopped answering their calls, said Eddie, who was released from Villawood on compassionate grounds after his uncle's death.

Nale told Lateline he had set up an immigration service this year but had since shut it down. "What I do is, I lift my hand up, because there are too many people being taken for granted by solicitors, barristers. There are too many sharks out there, they're taking money from our people."

He claimed that the Rauluni family had offered him the A$2000, which he planned to repay.