Travel consultant jailed for forgery [1]
Friday, March 27, 2015 - 18:06. Updated on Friday, March 27, 2015 - 22:09.
A former travel consultant was today sentenced to four years imprisonment with the final 18 months suspended after pleading guilty to 39 counts of forgery and knowingly dealing with forged documents for visa applications to foreign countries, mostly the United States.
Sera Polata (41) of Fijian origin who was sentenced by Mr Justice Cato will therefore serve two-years and six-months at Hu’atolitoli Prison.
The sentence is to be backdated to February this year when she was remanded in custody for sentencing.
Mr Justice Cato said these are very serious offences essentially because it brings the integrity of Tonga’s system of granting travel documents to foreign countries into disrepute.
He emphasized the integrity required for the issuing of passports and travel documents to international countries.
“These offences were done knowingly by the accused at numerous times to many people over a six-months period with the intention to gain some money. She had charged a fee of $700 to lodge the visa applications with foreign embassies, in which $400 to lodge the applications and $300 as her service fee.”
The judge in breaking down the sentences imposed four-years with the last 18 months suspended on two main counts of forgery. He then imposed 12-months sentences each on the remaining counts to be served concurrently with the four-years sentence on the two main counts.
Forgery
The accused had initially pleaded not guilty to a total of 47 counts of forgery and knowingly dealing with forged documents, at the start of her trial on 26 January, at the Nuku'alofa Supreme Court.
During trial, she changed her plea to guilty to 39 counts of forgery that included 29 forgeries and 10 for knowingly dealing with forged documents. The Crown had withdrawn the eight remaining counts due to insufficient evidence.
The court had heard from October 2013 to April 2014, the accused who was a travel consultant at the Friendly Island Travel in Tokomololo, had at numerous times forged documents by altering Westpac Bank of Tonga bank statements and reference letters of customers.
Customers provided her with their travel documents to lodge their visa applications on their behalf for a fee. She then had forged a number of reference letters and bank statements by scanning copies of reference letters provided by previous customers and copying and pasting it into new documents for other customers for their visa applications.
In early 2014 local private companies and government departments began to receive emails from the United States Embassy in Suva and Australian Immigration Department requesting verification of reference letters that displayed their letterheads submitted by the accused.
The reference letters were identified to have been forged and a complaint was made to Tonga Police.