International student scam suspect arrested

The immigration consultant accused of providing hundreds of international students with fake college admission letters to secure study permits in Canada has been arrested.

Canada Border Services Agency said in a statement that it has charged Brijesh Mishra, a citizen of India, with offering immigration advice without a licence and with counselling a person to directly or indirectly misrepresent or withhold information from authorities.

“Following information provided to the CBSA concerning Mr. Mishra’s status in Canada, as well [as] his alleged involvement in activities related to counselling misrepresentation, the Agency launched an investigation,” reads the statement.

These charges were announced a week after federal immigration minister Sean Fraser assured international students facing deportation that those who have been scammed will be allowed to stay in Canada until their cases are reviewed further.

“The Government of Canada’s focus is on identifying those who are responsible for the fraudulent activity and not on penalizing those who may have been affected by fraud,” Fraser said on June 14.

According to CBC last month, Mishra has been arrested by Indian authorities, his license in that country has been revoked, and further investigations are ongoing in India.

For over two weeks in May, hundreds of international students and advocates permanently camped outside CBSA offices in Mississauga, calling on ministers to stop the affected students from being deported and to protest against putting the onus of fraud on its victims.

New Canadian Media first reported on the potentially hundreds of international students facing deportation in March. Several pointed to Mishra as the immigration consultant they had hired to coordinate their visa, travel, and education in Canada.

It wasn’t until after they had spent years and thousands of dollars studying and working here that Canadian immigration officials informed the students that their college acceptance letters were fake and they faced deportation.

Last week, Minister Fraser announced a joint investigation with his office and CBSA further looking into the claims of international students being defrauded by overseas consultants.

The charges against Mishra were laid by the CBSA Pacific Region Criminal Investigations Section, reported the Toronto Star.

“Our officers worked diligently to investigate these offences and we will continue to do our best to ensure those who break our laws are held accountable,” said Nina Patel, regional director general responsible for the agency.

A new task force has been established by senior immigration and border enforcement officials to examine the specifics of each case to decide whether individual students were complicit in defrauding the system.

Some of the students and their supporters had camped outside the CBSA office on Airport Road in Toronto for weeks, and the parliamentary immigration committee has launched its own study, demanding answers from immigration and border officials on this matter.

Supporters have said the students were victims and should not be penalized and questioned why the fraudulent documents weren’t detected until years later after many of the students had already graduated from other schools, had jobs and gotten established.

According to official data, more than 800,000 international students had valid visas in Canada last year, an increase of nearly a third in one year. Of this number, 320,000 students came from India.

The number of international students enrolled at Canadian higher education institutions was 373,599 in 2022.