Nelson man used fake passports to clear Customs in NZ, Australia and Fiji for three years

Nelson man Dane Moule travelled in and out of New Zealand for three years on a fake passport. Photo / Supplied

• Dane Antony Moule used two fake passports to travel between New Zealand, Australia and Fiji for three years.
• The forgeries used the associate’s name but Moule’s photograph.
• Moule was convicted in the Nelson District Court for false representations and using forged travel documents.
• He was remanded on bail for sentencing in July after admitting two representative charges.

A man travelled between New Zealand, Australia and Fiji for three years using two separate fake passports, clearing Customs and Immigration each time.

Dane Antony Moule, who has a criminal record, says he did it because he knew he wouldn’t be allowed into Australia, where NZME understands he has close family members.

According to the police summary of facts, which does not specify Moule’s criminal history, he had asked an associate to complete the first of two false passport applications in May 2015.

The New Zealand passport was processed and issued by the Department of Internal Affairs in his associate’s name, with Moule’s photograph, Nelson District Court heard yesterday.

The following month, Moule travelled from Auckland to the Gold Coast, clearing Customs with the passport, knowing it was false.

Moule used the same passport to fly back to New Zealand, arriving in Christchurch a few weeks later.

He booked another trip to Australia in January 2016, using the same false passport to travel from Auckland to Brisbane, returning eight days later.

Then, there was a hiatus in Moule’s travels until February 2018, when he travelled to Fiji, using a different fake passport.

In 2016, he acquired a second fake passport, using the same associate to complete the application in his name but again using Moule’s photo.

On February 16, 2018, Moule took off for Nadi, having cleared Customs using the forged passport before travelling back to Auckland nine days later.

NZME understands Moule was eventually caught by the facial recognition technology used in passports.

At the border, New Zealand Customs uses eGates to match the picture of someone’s face in their ePassport with the picture it takes of them at the gate.

The Department of Internal Affairs began issuing New Zealand biometric passports in 2005, but dozens of false passports were discovered during security checks before a new online passport renewal system was introduced in late 2012.

In court yesterday, Moule, now 61, admitted two representative charges laid under the Passport Act for false representations and using forged and false New Zealand travel documents.

Moule’s guilty pleas followed an amendment to what was initially eight separate charges.

One of the representative charges carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence and the other, five years.

He was remanded on bail ahead of his sentencing in July.

In 2023, three people were sentenced in the Whanganui District Court for their part in a sophisticated forgery ring that put fake identity papers, including United Nations diplomatic passports, into the hands of international criminals.

The fake passports, driver’s licences and government official ID cards, as well as United Nations identification cards and diplomatic passports, were detected at overseas borders, sparking an investigation by NZ Customs.

The charges resulted from a Customs investigation, codenamed Operation Eldorado, which began in November 2019 in response to information received from overseas enforcement agencies, including the United States’ Department of Homeland Security, about false identity documents being sold and exported from New Zealand.

Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.