Chinese woman jailed for using fake documents to bring child into NZ

Haiyan Luo has been jailed for using fake documents to bring a child into New Zealand. Photo / File

A New Zealand resident who provided false documents to immigration officers to try bring a child that was not hers into New Zealand has been jailed for three years and nine months.

Haiyan Luo, 46, was sentenced in the Waitakere District Court today to 26 months' imprisonment after pleading guilty to 17 charges of providing false or misleading information about the birth of a child to an immigration officer.

The businesswoman was also sentenced to a further 19 months for tax evasion charges.

Luo, a Chinese national who was granted residency in 2000, sponsored her Chinese husband for residency in 2008 after marrying him.

Her husband's application was delayed and in 2012 they told Immigration NZ they had a son in China and asked for it to be added to the father's application for residency.

Immigration New Zealand's Hong Kong Office raised a red flag about the identity documents relating to the baby and Luo's medical care and birth of the baby and it was investigated.

The investigation uncovered the child was not her biological child and she had not legally adopted it and that the documents provided to INZ were fake.

INZ compliance and investigations area manager Alistair Murray said using immigration processes to try and fraudulently bring a child into New Zealand would not be tolerated by Immigration New Zealand.

"Today's sentence is a strong deterrent," Murray said.

An IRD spokesperson said the tax evasion charges related to filing false GST returns, not filing GST returns and not passing on PAYE to Inland Revenue in regards to three companies. The total amount of tax evaded was $423,909.