A Nigerian national, Chinenye Alozie, pleaded guilty to several infractions against the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
According to Winnipeg Free Press, a court heard the offences involved Alozie’s dealings with more than 60 foreign nationals, most of them students, between 2014 and 2019.
Alozie has been advertising online about his services. Canadian Border Services Agency began to get wind of his activities in 2018.
Alozie “is not a licensed immigration consultant, nor is he a lawyer,” Crown attorney Matthew Sinclair told provincial court Judge Stacy Cawley at a sentencing hearing Tuesday. “He is not entitled to represent people with respect to their applications.”
Alozie’s bank records found deposits of $90,000 in 2016 and $120,000 in 2017 from people believed to be foreign nationals, Sinclair said. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada found several students, workers and visitors numbering 52 had made deposits applying to come to Canada.
Records provided to the border services agency showed that between 2014 and 2018, Alozie used his personal credit cards to pay the government fees of 61 immigration applicants.
A search of Alozie’s home in June 2019 uncovered evidence he aided 20 clients in producing false bank statements for their immigration applications and “assisted in coming up with fictitious storylines or personal histories to increase the likelihood of (their) application being approved,” Sinclair said.
Sinclair also stated that 5 of Alozie’s clients were allowed entry to Canada on the strength of their fraudulent immigration applications.
Alozie, a Nigerian-born father of 4, holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Manitoba. He owns a restaurant
It was while at university that Alozie was contacted by several Winnipeg schools “and essentially asked to help recruit students to attend school in the city, said defence lawyer Marc Zurbuchen.
“I got caught up with a lot of pressure to make people succeed… and achieve their goals,” Alozie told the court. “Initially, I was just helping my classmates, but when I successfully helped them, then they told their friends and their brothers and the pressure started to build up.”
Cawley said the sentence was appropriate, but told Alozie it was important that he acknowledge his actions weren’t wholly altruistic.
“You were benefiting financially from this, it wasn’t just good intentions,” Cawley said. “What you did was motivated at least in part by greed.”
Alozie admitted.
Bhagwant Batth, an immigration consultant with Kanwest Immigration Services in Winnipeg stated he has worked in the industry for more than 15 years and heard many horror stories from immigrants who’ve been taken advantage of.
“I feel offended when I hear of people defrauding immigrants. It brings a bad name to our immigration community,” Batth said. “This kind of thing is very prevalent.”
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