20 Jun 2017

Woman jailed over child's fake documents

8:26 pm on 20 June 2017

A New Zealand resident who faked birth documents to bring a child over from China has been jailed for two years.

Haiyan Luo, 46, moved to New Zealand from China in 1999 and later married a Chinese national, sponsoring him for residency.

However, Ms Luo and her husband told Immigration New Zealand they had a child in China and requested it be added to the father's application for residency.

Documents were flagged by officials in Hong Kong and it was later discovered the child was not theirs and had not been legally adopted.

Medical records of her pregnancy and delivery, and birth certificate documents were found to be fake.

Luo pleaded guilty to 17 charges of providing false or misleading information and has been sentenced to 26 months imprisonment.