NZ visa officer in Delhi sacked over corruption claim

New Delhi, July 9(ANI): An Immigration New Zealand visa officer in New Delhi has been sacked after an internal investigation into corruption claims.

Head of Immigration Nigel Bickle said the staff member was dismissed in May for "misusing departmental information for personal purposes".

The agency is also facing ongoing police investigations after an Indian-origin lawyer in New Zealand, Vinay Deobhakta, lodged a complaint of corruption with police after Immigration New Zealand closed its investigation into an earlier complaint.

Deobhakta, who had been trying to get a group of 47 Indians to New Zealand last year, alleged that an immigration officer in New Delhi had demanded a 282,000 dollar bribe to process their visas, The New Zealand Herald reports.

He said that an Auckland woman had claimed that she could get work permits for the group if he paid the officer 6000 dollars each.

He added that the woman had a relative who was a staff member in Immigration's New Delhi office. (ANI)