Travellers' tall stories get short shrift at border

Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images
A Brazilian woman who claimed she wanted to see the Lord of the Rings film sites - but thought Harry Potter was the films' main character - was one of thousands of travellers refused entry into New Zealand in the past year, a new report has revealed.

In the 2016 financial year, 5.9 million international travellers arrived in New Zealand, a 9% increase on the previous year.

In that time, 2930 people were prevented from boarding a flight to New Zealand and 1371 were refused entry on arrival.

Malaysia was the top country from which passengers were refused entry, followed by Hong Kong and Brazil.

Travellers were commonly stopped from flying to New Zealand because they did not have a visa, did not have a valid travel document or had not met entry requirements.

Being the subject of an alert stopped 424 travellers, 151 were deemed to have non-genuine visiting intentions and 70 were stopped for false passport or ID concerns.

In most cases, people flying to New Zealand are required to have a return ticket.

However, Immigration New Zealand will pay the return cost for passengers from visa-required countries when necessary. The passengers must pay back any debt and are not granted a visa to travel back to New Zealand until it is paid.

Another case revealed in the Immigration New Zealand report, released yesterday, was of a Mexican man who claimed he wanted to see the likes of kangaroos and boomerangs to get away from "security concerns'' with the legislation of cannabis in his home country. He was found not to be a genuine visitor.

Another stopped was a South African passport holder who had a dating profile claiming he was a New Zealand man seeking a "nice girl to have serious relationship'', while another was a Russian man with no explanation for having two passports, 64 credit cards, 100 sim cards and six mobile phones.

Border control also stopped a man coming from Canada who had been found guilty of conspiracy to defraud in England in a case related to fake US Government bonds to the tune of $2.5 trillion.

INZ New Zealand border manager Senta Jehle said the report illustrated the work done to protect New Zealand borders from people who posed a risk.

"Screening for and managing risk at the earliest point of a passenger's journey remains a real priority for us,'' she said.

"To this end we have increased the number of frontline staff and strengthened our security and ICT systems.

"The increasing passenger volumes and international environment will continue to challenge us all to be increasingly innovative and connected to ensure the most effective border processes possible into the future.'' 

Comments

So someone wants to see LOTR film sites (which exist physically), presumably for their beauty, but doesn't know where Harry Potter (a fictional character) belongs. What's wrong with that!? Makes perfect sense to me. I can easily see myself wanting to see a place so beautiful as to feature in a major film series without giving the slightest of ideas about what the made-up names of its characters are, or, for that matter, what the story was about.