How fraudsters scam Canada’s immigration system and their clientele?!

On the official website of Citizenship and Immigration of Canada in more than 21 languages ranging from Arabic to Vietnamese, people who are looking to immigrate to Canada are warned to be careful with fraudsters and to stay away from unauthorized consultants.

Despite the government’s efforts to regulate the industry, however, large numbers of unlicensed consultants continue to operate under the radar, sometimes going to great lengths to dupe the system — or their clients — and making loads of money doing it. Last fall an unlicensed consultant for carrying out one of the biggest immigration frauds was arrested. According to the authorities this was one of the biggest immigration scam activity seen which was involving doctored passports and other forged documents.

While that prosecution was successful, critics say so-called “ghost consultants” continue to operate largely in an enforcement vacuum. These unauthorized representatives operate in the shadows. Internal records show while the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has received several hundred complaints about suspected illegal immigration-consulting operations over the past four years, it has opened only a few dozen investigations.

By law all consultants are required to register with the ICCRC. To become a member, you have to complete an exam, go through a background check and submit to compliance audits.

Yet, many are operating outside these rules. Some of them tout “special connections” with government officials and promise prospective clients guaranteed visas or work permits when they know they can’t deliver.

Part of the problem, critics say, is while the ICCRC can investigate its own members, it doesn’t have the authority to go after non-members. Complaints about unlicensed consultants have to be forwarded to the CBSA.

Internal records show the border agency fielded hundreds of complaints about alleged unauthorized immigration consultants. It opened tens of cases and laid many charges.

The CBSA sets priorities and focuses criminal investigations on cases that are likely to have the greatest impact.

Even with though regulations and penalties still many ghost consultants are working in Shadow. Some use tricks to attract clients by declaring that they would have a special secret access through connections and authorities to promise that the application result would be positive and guaranteed.

Some authorities believe that the government needs to establish tougher regulations and ICCRC should be given the power to identify the ghost consultants and take legal actions against them through the authorities in order to protect the rights of regulated certified Immigration consultants.

Applicants who are interested to hire an immigration consultant to represent them before the immigration authorities must make sure that they are hiring a licensed Immigration consultant through consulting the ICCRC official website.

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