Australia's Department of Immigration & Citizenship (DIAC) has uncovered a visa scam where hundreds of Indian students are paying criminals for fake work references in order to gain Australian residency. In the past year alone, the Migration Review Tribunal has heard 15 cases of Indian students who are fighting allegations of fraudulent visa applications.
The Herald Sun has reported further details of the scam, worth millions of dollars;
The scam involving restaurant and small business owners has been described by officials as an "an organised and lucrative criminal enterprise" which undermines the skilled migration program. It has been exposed in more than a dozen rulings by the Migration Review Tribunal, which has cancelled the temporary and permanent residency of students who paid up to $3500 for fake documents.
"One Indian student paid the scam's kingpin $3500 to be a cook and another paid a chef $2500 for a fake reference and a photo of him in the kitchen".
"One Indian student paid the scam's kingpin $3500 to be a cook and another paid a chef $2500 for a fake reference and a photo of him in the kitchen".
The students bought references saying they had 900 hours of unpaid work experience in jobs such as cooks, bakers, mechanics and hairdressers. The references gave them half the required points towards residency.
Most of those cases fought in the Migration Review Tribunal were held in Melbourne, but they are merely a snapshot of a wider fraud that has taken place nationwide, according to the Immigration Department.
One Indian student paid the scam's kingpin $3500 to be a cook and another paid a chef $2500 for a fake reference and a photo of him in the kitchen.
The key man in the scam, Carmine Amarante, worked at training college Della International in Melbourne. He has been jailed for three years for the $2 million rort but he was not the only one abusing immigration's lax security.
Amarante created 541 fake documents attached to 471 visa applications lodged with the department. He charged between $1500 and $2500 for each fraudulent document and paid the business owners $300 to $500 for each signature.
The Immigration Department has been cancelling visas since uncovering the five-year scam but declined to comment.Last month an Indian citizen who used fake documents, Ram Kishan Dhiman, lost his battle to stay in Australia in the Federal Magistrates Court.
To read the story in full at the Herald Sun, click here.
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