Over three months after the unearthing of a scam of ‘fake offer letters’ from Canadian colleges, the main accused, Brijesh Mishra, who had duped hundreds of students by providing them with fake offer letters, was arrested by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) on June 23.
The scam came to light in mid-March this year when hundreds of Indian students, primarily Punjabi, reported that they were facing deportation from Canada due to the fake offer letters provided to them by a Jalandhar-based travel agent, Brijesh Mishra, running a firm called M/S Education Migration Services.
Mishra, who originally hails from Darbhanga in Bihar, was arrested at an airport in British Columbia on June 23 while attempting to enter Canada. The CBSA charged him with offering immigration advice without a licence and counselling individuals to misrepresent or withhold information from the authorities. According to Canadian media reports, only licensed lawyers and consultants registered with the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants can legally offer immigration advice and services.
A press release from CBSA stated, “On June 23, 2023, the CBSA Criminal Investigations Section laid charges under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) based on the evidence collected during the criminal investigation. These include IRPA Section 91(1) Unauthorized Representation or Advice for Consideration, Section 126 Counselling Misrepresentation, Section 127(a) Misrepresentation (Direct or Indirect Misrepresentation), Section 127(b) Misrepresentation (Communicating False Information), and Section 124(1)(a) Non-Compliance with the Act.”
Nina Patel, regional director general, Pacific Region, Canada Border Services Agency, said, “Our government is taking action against those who are responsible for fraud while protecting those who’ve come here to pursue their studies. I want to thank CBSA’s criminal investigators for their hard work in protecting Canadians and those who hope to come here.”
The release states that foreign students seeking to study in Canada require letters of acceptance from recognised post-secondary institutions to qualify for a student permit. The agency is responsible for identifying, investigating and prosecuting individuals and entities that violate the Customs Act and the IRPA. Mishra is currently in pre-trial detention in British Columbia and is scheduled for a bail hearing on Saturday night.
On March 17, the Jalandhar police had registered a case against Mishra and his partners under sections 465, 467, 468, 471, and 120B of the IPC. Later, the investigation was handed over to the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit. Furthermore, the licence of his consultancy was cancelled by the Jalandhar district authorities.
Surprisingly, Mishra is not new to such police actions as he was previously arrested by the Jalandhar police in 2013 for duping students when he was running ‘Easy Way Immigration Agency’. After that, he opened a new agency called ‘Education Migration Services’ in 2014 in Jalandhar, which was utilised by the 700-odd students now facing deportation from Canada, providing them with temporary relief. Most of the students who faced deportation went to Canada in 2018-19 for study purposes. However, the fraud came to light five years later when the students applied for permanent residency (PR) in Canada, and the ‘admission offer letters’ came under scrutiny by the CBSA. The ‘offer letters’ based on which the visas were issued to the students were found to be fake.
Mishra charged an average of Rs 16 lakh from each student for visa-related services and college admissions. After the students arrived in Canada, he would inform them that seats were not available in the colleges mentioned in the offer letters. He would then ask them to either seek admission in some other college or wait for the next intake. In some cases, he returned the college fees, but in several cases, he did not.
After the scam came to light, students and various organisations began protesting in Canada and set up a permanent sit-in front of the CBSA office, prompting the Canadian Immigration Minister, Sean Fraser, to announce the cancellation of deportations and provide an opportunity for the students to prove their innocence.
Joga Singh, the father of student Lovepreet Singh whose deportation was deferred on June 10, expressed gratitude and stated, “God has listened to us. Now we are praying that the students must get justice and the role of the colleges must be investigated.”
Balbir Singh, a student studying in Canada, expressed happiness and stated that they are now looking forward to a fair resolution of the scam.
Meanwhile, the “Stand for Student Morcha,” a student organisation from Canada, has written a letter to Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, requesting immediate intervention and collaboration with the Canadian government for a compassionate approach considering the individual circumstances of each affected student. The morcha has also provided a list of six agents based in Punjab to investigate their activities.
Timeline
* On March 15, news came that 700 Indian students were facing deportation from Canada due to fake offer letters of colleges.
* On March 17, The Indian Express reported that Brijesh Mishra had previously been accused of illegal practices in 2013 when he was arrested for forging documents to send students abroad.
* On March 17, the Jalandhar police registered a case against Mishra, his accomplices Gurnam Singh and Rahul Bhargava.
* On March 18, students began symbolic protests for a couple of hours during weekends against deportation till May 29 when they started permanent dharna.
* On March 19, The Indian Express first reported that Mishra’s fake offer letter had led to the blacklisting of a Punjab student for five years.
* On March 19, Punjab Rajya Sabha MP Vikramjit Singh Sahney met External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, and handed over a memorandum requesting his intervention to stop the deportation of the 700 Indian students in Canada. He also offered free legal aid to all such students to contest their cases in Canada.
* On March 21, the licence of Mishra’s firm was cancelled.
* On March 23, Rajya Sabha Member Balbir Singh Seechewal wrote to the External Affairs Minister, urging him to intervene.
* On April 24, Karamjeet Kaur, based in Edmonton, received a removal order from the CBSA after exhausting her legal options. Kaur was one of around 30 students facing removal proceedings.
* On May 27, Karamjit Kaur’s removal order was deferred, making her the first case to receive a deferral.
* On May 29, students started a permanent dharna in front of the office of the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) in Ontario to demand the cancellation of all deportations.
* On May 29, MP Vikramjit Singh Sahney got an emali from Canadian Immigration Minister that Canada was investigating the case of the 700 immigration fraud victims from Punjab.
* On June 8, External Affairs Minister Jaishankar said MEA and the Indian High Commission in Canada would assist the 700 Indians facing deportation due to fake documents.
* On June 10, the removal order of another student, Lovepreet Singh, who was supposed to leave Canada on June 13, was stayed.
* On June 15, the Canadian Immigration Minister, Sean Fraser, announced that a task force of Immigration and CBSA would issue Temporary Resident Permits to students who could prove they were not involved in fraud. These students would not face deportation or a five-year ban from re-entering Canada.
* On June 16, after protesting for 18 days, the students temporarily lifted the dharna and began preparing their next plan of action in case of any adverse orders in the probe against them.
* On June 23, Mishra was arrested at British Columbia Airport by CBSA while he was trying to enter Canada.
