For the 15 men from Uzbekistan, it seemed like a dream: an offer of $28 an hour to work in New Zealand.

The average salary in the former Soviet republic is a dollar an hour.

The men didn’t know each other, but all came from Angren, a small, economically-depressed industrial city to the east of the country, and had some association with an Uzbek living in Auckland, Shehzod ‘Shaun’ Nozirov, who owned gibstopping company Zero Max Line.

Nozirov even persuaded one of the men to sell his house and all his belongings to come to New Zealand...

The dream came with some catches: seven of the men say Nosirov asked for a $US10,000 ‘bond’ (about $NZ17,000) and between $US2500 and $US3500 (about $NZ4200 to $NZ5900) in fees for arranging their visas. It’s not legal to ask for payment ‘premiums’ to secure jobs.

When they arrived, the men say they were also told they had to pay for their own tools, uniforms (up to $1990 in total), vehicle and Site Safe certificates ($205)...

After the men made an appeal on social media, Westwood, a former Immigration New Zealand officer who speaks some Russian, agreed to represent them pro bono...

Westwood said the company had agreed to mediation, but on the same day, sent letters to some of the men dismissing them immediately without reason under a 90-day trial clause in his contract. Then last Tuesday Nosirov placed the company in liquidation...

Zero Max Line had been sub-contracting to a company called Gibset. The company’s owner, Slav Alexeichik, said he’d terminated their relationship as soon as he had heard allegations that the workers were being mistreated...