Immigration rule changes needed to stop jobs-for-sale scam, experts say

2024/03/07 Leave a comment

More on a broken immigration system and the incentives to game the system of international students and LMIAs. Blaney’s suggestion to no longer provide points to students with a LMIA job worthy of consideration:

…Immigration consultant Earl Blaney said the College the needs to do more to hunt down and discipline its members involved in LMIA fraud.

Mr. Blaney said “the huge volume of international students” wanting to stay and work in Canada was fuelling the sale of LMIA jobs, which could bring with them 50 or more points toward gaining permanent residence.

He suggested, to deter the buying of jobs, international graduates applying for permanent residence should be disqualified for including points accrued from an LMIA job. Mr. Blaney said the scam, which requires employers to advertise jobs and prove that a Canadian is not available to do them, is also robbing Canadians of employment.

“They are not advertising jobs to Canadians in any way,” he said. “Canadians come last for sure.”

Source: Immigration rule changes needed to stop jobs-for-sale scam, experts say

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Ottawa urged to clamp down further on immigration employment scam

2023/10/02 Leave a comment

Ottawa is being urged to crack down on an immigration scam where people hoping to find jobs in Canada are being forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars to potential employers – and a fee to immigration consultants – to find jobs here.

The federal Immigration Department last year altered regulations to try to put a stop to employers charging people fees for a job in Canada under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, which is designed to fill jobs where no Canadians or permanent residents are available for the role.

But immigration experts say that, despite the clampdown by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, some temporary foreign workers are still being exploited and made to pay large sums to secure a job in Canada.

The Globe and Mail has spoken to immigration consultants, lawyers and immigrants concerned about the scam where would-be immigrants pay to get a Canadian employer to apply for a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA), a document showing there is a need for a temporary foreign worker. Once an employer obtains the LMIA from Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), the worker can apply for a work permit.

The Globe also found open discussions on social media, including by an immigration consultant, talking about people in India paying to obtain an LMIA job.

LMIAs are used to fill a wide variety of vacancies: unskilled jobs, including those in the catering, hospitality and retail sectors, as well as semi-skilled and skilled jobs.

The Immigration Department told The Globe and Mail it was aware of scams involving LMIA fraud, but had taken steps last year to guard against them with changes to regulations.

“Sectors identified as high risk for LMIA fraud receive an enhanced assessment to validate the employer’s business operations and the human resource needs,” the IRCC said in a statement.

Earl Blaney, a registered immigration consultant from London, Ont., said the demand for payment from migrants to get jobs in Canada was still “pervasive” and was also being used as a route to settling in Canada.

He said some foreign graduates who have studied in Canada but whose postgraduate work permits have run out are paying to stay in the country and get a semi-skilled LMIA job, such as a retail supervisor. Semi-skilled LMIA jobs confer 50 points toward obtaining permanent residence, he said.

Mr. Blaney said the temporary foreign workers program was set up to address labour-market shortages but has led to “profiteering” by some unscrupulous employers and immigration consultants who are splitting payments from immigrants.

“The market rate is about $50,000, but they are selling them [LMIAs] for higher,” he said. “This is staple if you are trying to get to Canada. It’s pervasive. It’s not just India, its everywhere. It’s illegal for immigration consultants or lawyers to charge for this. But crooked consultants will start the process and they don’t even know if it is going to be approved by ESDC. If it is approved, the $5,000-$7,000 fee goes up to $40,000 to $70,000 to $80,000.”

Last year, the federal government brought in changes to regulations to make sure temporary foreign workers are not charged for their own recruitment.

“To mitigate concerns about the financial exploitation of temporary foreign workers, employers must commit to not charge or recover from workers any fees related to recruitment,” the IRCC said in a statement. “Employers must also ensure that any third party who recruits temporary foreign workers on their behalf does not charge or recover such fees from the temporary foreign workers.”

The changes to the regulations also ensure temporary foreign workers get an employment contract on their first day of work. It must match the offer of employment, with the same wages and working conditions.

But one immigration lawyer, whom The Globe is not naming as he feared reprisals, said some who paid to get an LMIA job have arrived here from India to find they have no employment, or have to work long hours for virtually no pay.

He said employers or consultants and lawyers are continuing to ask migrants to pay approximately $60,000 to $70,000 to come to Canada for employment.

He said individuals are often willing to pay such a high amount because they would otherwise not qualify for immigration through other pathways in Canada. The majority of the money goes to the employers and around $10,000 to $20,000 is taken by the lawyer or consultant who files the application for the LMIA, he said.

Work permit holders are willing to pay so much, and often struggle with rampant abuse in the hope of becoming a permanent resident, the lawyer added.

The IRCC said all employers submitting an LMIA application are subject to “a genuineness assessment.”

“The Government of Canada takes its responsibility to protect the health and safety of temporary foreign workers, as well as the integrity of the Temporary Foreign Worker [TFW] Program, very seriously. We are aware of cases where people are scammed. We have taken concrete actions to ensure this doesn’t occur,” it said in a statement.

Earlier this year Ottawa launched an inquiry into a scam involving international students who faced deportation after being given bogus acceptance letters from colleges by consultants.

Source: Ottawa urged to clamp down further on immigration employment scam

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Chinese, Vietnamese students caught up in college-admission scam, Ottawa says

2023/06/20 Leave a comment

Some useful data:

Students from China and Vietnam have been caught up in an immigration scam affecting Indian students involving fake acceptance letters to Canadian colleges, the federal immigration department told MPs.

Immigration Minister Sean Fraser told the Commons committee on citizenship and immigration that eight Indian students ensnared in the fraud have already been deported. But they could return to Canada “if they demonstrate that their intention to come to Canada was genuine and that they were not complicit in fraud.”

Mr. Fraser this week granted a reprieve from deportation to students who were unknowingly involved in the scam. They will be granted temporary residency permits while a task force investigates their cases to see if they were innocently duped or complicit in the immigration fraud.

The task force will look into the cases of 57 Indian students with bogus admission letters to Canadian colleges and universities who have been issued with removal orders, and 25 are going through the deportation process, deputy minister Christiane Fox told MPs on the immigration committee last Wednesday.

Ten Indian students found to have fake admission letters to colleges have left Canada voluntarily.

Ottawa launched a probe into 2,000 suspicious cases involving students from India, China and Vietnam earlier this year. It found that around 1,485 had been issued bogus documents to come to Canada by immigration consultants abroad, she said.

Although 85 per cent of the students affected by scams were from India, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada had also uncovered evidence of fraud affecting Chinese and Vietnamese students.

Ms. Fox said 976 of the students had been refused entry to Canada after their letters of acceptance from colleges were found to be fake, while 448 had their applications to come to Canada approved.

The deputy minister told the committee of MPs that around 300 of these students would have their cases individually investigated by the new task force. Others of the 448 who had their applications approved have been found to have been linked to “criminality.”

In the Commons last Friday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said the students had been “defrauded by shady consultants who gave them fake admission letters.” He said the newcomers should be given work permits while they wait for their applications for permanent residence to be processed.

Also on Friday, Conservative MPs called for overseas immigration consultants who duped the students to be blacklisted and all their files, including those in the past, to be reviewed.

“Every consultant or agent who scammed these international students should have the files they worked on reviewed to protect the victims and proactively inform them,” said Tom Kmiec, Conservative immigration critic. “Any consultant or agent who committed fraud should be barred and their names should be logged with IRCC to prevent future fraud.”

Saskatoon Conservative Brad Redekopp, who also sits on the immigration committee, urged the federal government to immediately start checking the files of overseas consultants found to have issued bogus documents. He told The Globe and Mail it was a problem that, while Canadian immigration consultants had to register and were subject to standards, overseas consultants did not face similar checks.

Ms. Fox said the department was already looking into the files of consultants found to have issued fake letters of acceptance to Canadian universities.

Mr. Fraser said the department had found that multiple consultants had been involved in the scam involving fake admission letters as part of study permit applications. He said the government was conducting hundreds of investigations to “bust fraudsters.”

In 2018, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada introduced a new program to verify letters of acceptance to colleges, he said. But he added the department deals with hundreds thousands of applications a year and it would be hard to manually verify every admission letter. He hoped that new efforts to clamp down on overseas scams could be aided by technology, but it also required the co-operation of foreign authorities.

He said he understood the situation was extremely distressing for students facing deportation, after being duped by “bad actors,” and their well-being was paramount.

The task force will look at whether they finished their studies or started work in Canada soon after they arrived.

Source: Chinese, Vietnamese students caught up in college-admission scam, Ottawa says

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Immigration fraud in Canada, foreign workers should be cautious

2020/08/24 Leave a comment

Yet another instance:

When the video call ended, Rami Al-Americani felt confident he would get the job.

The four people who had interviewed him for a position at a Montreal-based construction company had asked him detailed questions, but Al-Americani owned and operated an engineering consulting firm in Lebanon. He knew he could do the work.

The address for Montreal Construction Group corresponds to a non-existent lot that would be in the middle of René-Lévesque Blvd., near Place Ville Marie. Workers in the area say they have never heard of the company. It isn’t real.A Montreal Gazette investigation has confirmed that the firm is part of a network of ghost companies concealing an elaborate immigration scam. Those who orchestrate the network use the prospect of living and working in Montreal, and in Canada, as a lure to target educated workers in the Middle East, gaining their trust with a lengthy application period before requesting money to pay for the immigration process.

The scam is convincing. The network operates under the guise of three interlinked companies: a recruitment agency, a construction firm and an immigration consultant firm. Multiple people act out different roles, from human resource representatives to hiring managers. The jobs they offer and the companies they purport to run are not real. They have websites that mimic those of real firms and use the stolen identities of real immigration consultants to assure victims of their legitimacy.

Those who fall victim to the scam have little recourse. The network exists largely in a jurisdictional vacuum online. Even when regulators do catch on, the network just shuts down and restarts under a new name.

“It’s a big network,” Al-Americani said. “It’s amazing that they took the time to do a fake website and some of them act as the recruitment, the other ones act as the company people, operations, HR. Another part acts as the immigration consultants.”

A chance for a job in Canada

For Al-Americani, it began in October 2019, when a woman who said her name was Mellissa Luke called him. She worked for a company called Nova Recruiters, based in Ottawa, she said, and wondered if he was interested in an opportunity to work in Canada. She sent along forms and arranged an interview with Montreal Construction Group.

The application process was thorough, Al-Americani recalled. He did several interviews, including one video call with four people.

“The people who interviewed me are people who understand construction,” he said. “I was interviewed by a so-called senior guy in operations and people who understand the terminology that we used in construction, who understand projects, so they prepared for it and they seemed professional.”

Between the initial phone call and the time Al-Americani was hired, a few weeks had passed. He filled out human-resources forms and Montreal Construction Group transferred him to Canada Immigration Hub, their approved immigration consultant, ostensibly based in Alberta. A man reached out. He said his name was Craig Jackson and that he was a certified immigration consultant. He sent along forms and asked for payment.

It worked. Al-Americani was hopeful about the move to Canada. He had researched the country and was tempted by the prospect of a good education for his children. The process was going to be expensive — Al-Americani knew that. He paid.

The money, $1,000 as an initial fee, was wired to a U.S. bank, which bothered Al-Americani. When he caught on to the scam, he seethed at the thought that someone could go to such lengths to prey on his family’s hopes of moving to Canada.

Others who have fallen — or nearly fallen — for the scam report noticing red flags, but sometimes ignoring them, blinded by the prospect of a new life abroad.

Eslam Emara, a Saudi man with 10 years of experience in transportation and logistics, caught on to the fraudsters. He was skeptical at every turn. He asked for proof of identity, scrutinized the companies’ websites, asked around on online forums and noticed holes in the Montreal Construction Group facade.

When the man calling himself Jackson asked for money, Emara said no. “That’s the time I had to say to them, ‘That’s bulls—. I’m not buying.’ ”

But it hurt him. A little part of him had been holding out hope, despite the red flags.

“It seems ridiculous, because I knew that it’s a fraud, but I was just dreaming on,” he said in a recent interview from Riyadh, uttering a laugh, then a sigh. He had hoped to immigrate to Canada with his wife and child. “It was one of our dreams to do something like this, so they gave us much disappointment.”

A convincing online network

The fake companies’ websites present a facade that at first is convincing to those targeted by the scammers.

But the slick sites don’t stand up to scrutiny. The Nova Recruiters site lists jobs that don’t exist. The Montreal Construction Group site is an exact imitation of a site belonging to a New Zealand company. It lists projects ostensibly completed by Montreal Construction Group that were completed by other firms. And the Canada Immigration Hub website features testimonials from satisfied clients — who aren’t real.

Raghib, from Saudi Arabia, says on the site: “No matter how easy or straightforward Canadian immigration process might look like, it isn’t easy at all. … After getting in touch with CIH, things were different and much better.”Surender, from Bangalore, says: “These people explained to me how studying in Canada can help me with my career and eventually getting a permanent residency.”

But the photo for Surender is really a stock image, available online, titled “Portrait of a middle-aged Indian with folded hands.” The photo of Raghib is another stock image: “Horizontal portrait of young smiling Arab man.”

Perhaps the most convincing tactic used by Canada Immigration Hub is the name of the person they use to contact their potential victims: Craig Jackson.

An identity stolen with impunity

Craig Jackson is a real immigration consultant, registered with the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council (ICCRC), a non-profit organization that has been mandated by the federal government to regulate immigration advising services. But he does not work for Canada Immigration Hub. The fraudsters used his identity to gain their victims’ trust.

The real Craig Jackson said he began receiving emails in late 2019 and early 2020 from people who were being strung along by Montreal Construction Group, signalling that his name was being used as part of an elaborate fraud.

“My initial reaction was of outrage and anger, followed by wonder,” Jackson said. “(I) was curious as to why they targeted my identity.”

The ICCRC had advised him to report the fraud to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC) — so he did.Al-Americani also reported the fraud. He emailed the Canadian embassy in Beirut, but received a generic response. Emara said he was considering reporting the scam to Saudi police.

But the international nature of the scam hinders law enforcement efforts.

Jeff Thomson, a senior RCMP intelligence analyst at the CAFC, said well-trained, resourceful groups are likely behind the Montreal Construction Group fraud.

“People ask, ‘Who’s behind this stuff?’ It’s organized crime at the end of the day,” Thomson said. “When you look at the level of organization involved — the multiple countries where the money is going, the websites — the sophistication, the steps they set up to run the scams.”

The CAFC has received multiple complaints about Montreal Construction Group, but Canadian authorities lack the ability to investigate and prosecute those behind the fraud, in part because there is little connecting the perpetrators to Canada.

“What we see with a lot of these things is oftentimes the fraudsters use Canadian government entities or business names … but none of the money ends up coming here,” Thomson said. “They’re just using Canadian entities because people want to come to Canada for our reputation.”

Though the Montreal Construction Group fraudsters — and others like them — often avoid prosecution, Canadian authorities can make it more expensive for them to do business by targeting their websites and bank accounts.

But immigration fraud is rampant. It keeps the authorities busy, and shutting down websites and bank accounts only delays the scammers. They tend to crop back up.An Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada spokesperson said in a statement that the government had earmarked $51 million to improve enforcement and public awareness of immigration fraud and establish systems to better crack down on fraudulent immigration consultants.

“The government of Canada takes any kind of citizenship or immigration fraud seriously,” the statement reads. “Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada urges clients to use the official departmental website to obtain information about its programs in order to avoid becoming victims of fraud.”

An ICCRC spokesperson said the agency could not investigate the activity of those who had impersonated Jackson, because the perpetrators were not real immigration consultants. But he said the organization was aware of the situation: “We’ve been looking into the matter and are working with enforcement authorities to combat these schemes.” He also said criminal fraud of the kind displayed by the Montreal Construction Group scams is rare, but that the ICCRC is slated to soon become a new body that would have more power to prevent such fraud.

A hidden network

It is unclear who is behind the fraud, but banking information from an account associated with the fraud points to a man named Nabeel Ahmed, ostensibly living in Wichita, Kan. Phone records also link the listed number for Montreal Construction Group — a Montreal landline — to a man named Nabeel Ahmed.

In 2012, Windsor police arrested a man they said was a prolific fraudster named Nabeel Ahmed, who had a criminal history of committing identity and credit card fraud. He was convicted on fraud-related charges and was sentenced to 10 months in prison.
The Montreal Gazette could not confirm that the Nabeel Ahmed convicted in Windsor is the same person linked to the fraud-connected bank account and the Montreal landline. Attempts to reach Nabeel Ahmed were unsuccessful.

One of the fake company websites — the Nova Recruiters site — is listed as registered to someone in Ontario, suggesting the fraudsters may have some physical connection to Canada, but besides that, little is known about their physical location.

A game of whack-a-mole

Even if authorities succeed in shutting down Montreal Construction Group’s website, or if enough people catch on to the scam, those behind it may well restart the scam under a new company.

A Montreal Gazette analysis has found that an eerily similar fraud network operated in the spring of 2019 — before the Montreal Construction Group scam. The earlier scam offered victims employment on Canada’s West Coast instead of in Montreal, but the similarities between the operations suggest that those who run the Montreal Construction Group scheme have experience rebuilding their network when officials begin to catch on to them.

The earlier scam used the same methods as Montreal Construction Group, and much of the language the fraudsters use in emails from both the old and the new scam is identical.

Instead of Montreal Construction Group, the earlier scam used Richmond Construction Group. Instead of Nova Recruiters, the earlier scam used Oakville Recruiters. Instead of Canada Immigration Hub, the earlier scam used Canada Shores.
Instead of Craig Jackson, the fraudsters impersonated Gregory Batt, another registered immigration consultant.

The real Gregory Batt said he began receiving emails and phone calls in late April 2019 from people asking him when they would receive their permanent residence. “All the guys who contacted me were well educated and articulate, mostly engineers,” he said. “I told all the folks who contacted me that they had been cheated, that Canada Shores was a fake company.”

Ahmed Rashed, an experienced purchase manager from Saudi Arabia who nearly fell for the Richmond Construction Group scam, said the organization and co-ordination astounded him. He was close to paying an initial $1,000 fee to immigrate to Canada, but had a friend in Vancouver check the address of Richmond Construction Group. There was no company.

“I deal with the internet all the time and I was about to fall for this,” Rashed said. “You know why they chose Canada? They chose Canada because they know everybody likes Canada. … That will help them to fool more people. This is because Canada has a good reputation.”

Dreaming of Canada

While wrapped up in the scam, victims spend weeks — sometimes more than a month — planning to move their families, their lives, to a new country.

For Al-Americani, the loss of the $1,000 he paid is secondary to the pain of having his immigration hopes dashed.

“For a month and a half we were living this dream of going to Montreal and having this new life,” he said, “and having our kids become Canadians and ourselves becoming Canadians.”

When he came to the realization that the company was a lie — that there was no job offer, no prospect of working in Canada — Al-Americani was crushed. “We felt really bad about it,” he said. “For like two, three weeks we were depressed.”

The scam also tends to leave its victims distrustful of immigration processes. But Al-Americani is still holding out hope. He said his family has recently begun once more to mull over the idea of coming to Canada.

“You know, it’s been a few days since it’s passed through my head to do the process a second time,” he said. “I think we’re going to do it.”

No one answers the phones at any of the fake companies and, as of publication, their websites are still active.

Source:  Immigration fraud in Canada, foreign workers should be cautious

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