Illegal workers identified but the company behind it remains a mystery, writes Tony Wall.

IF YOU'VE been to a mall lately, you've probably been approached by them – young foreigners in black clothes handing out beauty cream derived from Dead Sea minerals.

The mostly Israeli staff have also come to the attention of Immigration NZ, because some of them have been working illegally. Mystery surrounds the workers, how they came to be recruited and who they are working for.

The Sunday Star-Times was told by an official source that when immigration officers approached staff at one mall asking for their papers, they said they would retrieve them from their car, but never returned.

Immigration NZ head Nigel Bickle said when compliance officers visited Sylvia Park shopping centre in Auckland in February, they shut down one kiosk where three salespeople were working illegally on visitor visas, then discovered another kiosk at the other end of the mall.

"When our officers arrived there, the kiosk had been abandoned," Bickle said.

"Employees of a nearby shop told our officers that four workers at the kiosk had left in a hurry about the same time our officers had been at the first kiosk."

He said staff at the first kiosk could not provide contact details for the person who had engaged them. One had since left the country.

The Star-Times visited kiosks at the Westfield mall at St Luke's and two others at Sylvia Park. Others have been set up at malls all around the country.

The staff are now calling themselves "volunteers" and say they do not get paid.

"I'm only volunteering. I'm just here to tell people about this product," said one woman at St Luke's. She said she had heard about the kiosk through word of mouth in the Israeli community and volunteered because she believed the Dead Sea salt could "cure people of diseases, it's amazing". She had been volunteering at the kiosk for only two days and would soon be moving on.

One of her colleagues, aged 22, said she had recently finished serving in the Israeli army and was "volunteering" at the kiosks because "we do something nice for Israel".

Asked why she would work for free, she said: "My father told me that if I volunteered for two years for Israel, he pay [for my] study."

At Sylvia Park, a young woman called Adva said she heard about the kiosks through a "friend of a friend". She had been travelling in New Zealand for four months and planned to leave for Thailand soon.

Asked why she was working for free, she said: "I don't do it for the money, I do it for Israel." While most of the staff were Israeli, a couple were from Chile.

The Star-Times spoke to an Israeli man alone, who said the workers were not volunteers, but were being paid on commission.

None of the staff were able to provide the name of the company they worked for or say who their manager was. Some claimed not to speak English well, even though they had just given spiels to shoppers.

A mall manager said he understood the company behind the kiosks used "student labour". Staff had also been asked to "tone down" their aggressive sales pitch after complaints from shoppers.

The manager gave the Star-Times a business card for a woman said to be behind the operation. Aviva Raisun is described as the administration manager of Dead Sea Beauty (2006) Ltd.

She said she made sure the kiosks had stock and that their accounting was up to date, but the business was owned by another company, LVS Retail.

Its owners were overseas on business and "will contact you when they are ready".

The companies office lists the director of LVS Retail as Sam Zewdie and the sole shareholder as Ronen Moshe. Its registered address is a warehouse in Avondale, which was locked up last week. Mail there was addressed to a Yuval Abes, who is listed as the sole shareholder of Dead Sea Beauty.

Neighbours said there were often young Israelis coming and going in a white van.

Bickle said Immigration NZ had identified the office manager who ran the kiosks, but was told the owner lived in Australia. He said the manager was warned that the kiosks could be staffed only by people entitled to work in New Zealand. Bickle said it was an offence to aid or abet anyone to breach the conditions of their visa and if done for material gain, carried a maximum penalty of seven years' jail and a $100,000 fine.