Indonesians get 13 months for forged NZ passports

A woman and three men arrested by police in Napier have been sentenced to 13 months in jail for entering New Zealand with forged passports which cost them thousands of dollars as part of a scam in Indonesia.
One paid more than $8000, another about $6700 and another about $5225, Judge Geoff Rea said in the Napier District Court yesterday.
The four each pleaded guilty to one charge of using a forged passport and one of possessing a false passport.
They were among six Indonesians apprehended when police went to a house in Wycliffe Street, Onekawa on June 19. The woman was identified only as Suwarni, and the three men as Thomas Triyono, 27, Abdul Rohim, 29, and Mohammed Royani, 35.
Crown prosecutor Russell Collins said all had been issued with removal warrants, and should be deported at the end of their sentences.
The other two, apprehended as overstayers, are in custody awaiting deportation, expected to happen within a week, depending on transport arrangements.
Judge Rea was told Rohim and Triyono arrived in Auckland on July 28 last year, while Suwarni and Royani entered New Zealand on October 16.
The judge said "it seemed" that in May Indonesian police arrested four people on suspicion of making and selling photo-substituted passports.
It was clear those in court had taken part in the process by paying for false passports, and that they knowingly used them to illegally enter New Zealand, and remain in the country illegally.
With worldwide concerns about terrorism, it was a "bad time" for the four to be involved in such a fraud, for it proved that while New Zealand had not been subject to the terrorism which had been seen abroad, it proved schemes were afoot to enable people to enter this country illegally.
"Right from the outset the scheme was totally illegal," Judge Rea said.
He said "stern measures" had to be taken to stop it, and while the quartet had entered New Zealand to work, and there was no suggestion it was for any other reason, they had to face the consequences.
He noted, as defence counsel Derek Qulliam had also said, that Triyono, the only English-speaker among the quartet, had skills that could have made him a readily-accepted immigrant had he wanted to come to New Zealand by legitimate means.