Subj : 'Embarrassing': 17-hour hunt for woman who fled Auckland Airport
To   : All
From : News
Date : Mon May 20 2024 12:47 pm

Immigration officials carried out three separate searches of Auckland Airport
and reviewed all CCTV footage to understand how a woman managed to abscond
from a secure part of the international terminal last year.


Internal documents reported by Stuff indicated border staff took 17 hours to
figure out the detained woman had escaped without her passport, passed
through the baggage hall and biosecurity, and fled in a taxi.


National border manager Peter Elms told Breakfast the mistake was
"embarrassing" and said he wanted to ensure it did not happen again.


"Immigration pre-screens all passengers coming to New Zealand [and] on this
particular occasion, we identified a lady we wanted to talk to.


"On arrival, immigration officers spoke to the lady and she was travelling on
a visitor visa. We determined actually she wasn't eligible for the visa she'd
been granted," he said.


Elms said Immigration New Zealand (INZ) staff suspected the woman's true
intentions were to work illegally in New Zealand.

"Consequently, just as normal practice, we refuse her entry and we turn her
around. Which means we put her on the first available flight back to the port
she came from. In this case, it was Beijing."


He said the woman was then taken to Auckland Airport's immigration day room,
which allowed people access to the transit facilities.


"We knew that lady had absconded even before her flight had taken off [as]
the flight was due to take of at 8.50pm," he said.


"We knew at the time that she wasn't on board that flight, so we initiated
immediate enquiries to try and search the Auckland Airport, alerting other
agencies to the fact that there was a passenger that was missing.


"There were three separate searches done during the evening and the following
morning. And it was only after we reviewed all the CCTV footage that was
available throughout the airport, that we eventually identified the method by
which this lady escaped."


An internal review carried out by INZ revealed to Stuff that several other
"near-misses" and declared procedures for holding detained passengers at the
time were too "casual".


Elms said he was concerned by the "near-misses", and said they had never had
a passenger abscond in this manner in the past 10 years.


"Although, once is too many. So, what we've done is change our procedures and
protocols. That means passengers waiting to be turned around will always be
supervised."


The woman who fled authorities was arrested and deported after returning to
the airport a month later to retrieve her passport.

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