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Fake offer letters, gullible students & dashed foreign dreams: How a con agent duped 700 in Punjab
The students said that when contacted Mishra after finding out their names hadn’t been registered in colleges, he made up excuses.
It was the promise of a better life and secure future abroad that led Gurdev Singh, a farmer from Peer Mohammad village in Ferozepur district, to use up all his life’s savings to send his son to Canada on a student visa in 2018. But little did he know that five years on, his son would be facing deportation.
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Gurdev’s son is among the 700-odd students who have been served deportation notices by the Canadian authorities over fraudulent documents.
All of them have one person to blame -- Brijesh Mishra, a Jalandhar-based consultant who sent them to Canada on the basis of fake offer letters from prominent colleges and universities. Their stories are the same—the offer letters seemed so genuine that even the embassy officials could not detect it. It was only upon their arrival in Canada and a subsequent visit to their respective colleges and universities that they found out that they had not been registered in these institutions.
The students said that when contacted Mishra after finding out their names hadn’t been registered in colleges, he made up excuses and convinced them to get enrolled in other colleges or wait for a semester. Mishra continued to dupe multiple Canada aspirants and their families until the students who had arrived in the country in 2016 applied for permanent residency and found out that their documents were fake.
It was then that the Canadian Border Security Agency (CBSA) conducted a detailed investigation and zeroed in on Brijesh Mishra’s firm Education and Migration Services.
The CBSA found that nearly 700 students who had come through Mishra’s firm between 2016 and 2020 had secured their visas on the basis of bogus offer letters. All of them were then served deportation notices.
“We are being punished for no fault of ours. It was Mishra who provided us the fraudulent documents,” says Gurdev.
Another complainant, Baldev Raj of Jalandhar’s Songowal village, whose daughter had gone to Canada in 2016 through Mishra’s immigration firm to pursue a degree in business management, says, “After spending seven years in Canada, my daughter came to know that the offer letter on the basis of which she was granted a Canadian study visa was fake.”
“Mishra provided us with an offer letter from Sheridan College in Brampton but after reaching there, we found that there was no registration in my daughter’s name. Later, my daughter got enrolled with another Toronto-based college and completed her studies,” said Raj. He alleged that Mishra duped him of nearly ₹9.5 lakh.
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“It is important to deal with this matter sensitively as the future of our children is at stake. They have gone through a lot of trauma,” he added.
Another parent from Malerkotla said there is a deeper conspiracy at play. “One person alone cannot run such a scam. There must be a whole nexus, including travel agents to officials in Canadian colleges and university, running this scam.
All angles must be probed,” he said.
A lucky escape for one
A Ferozepur resident, Jugraj Singh, who is the complainant in FIR Number-47 registered against Mishra, said he came to know about the latter’s fraudulent activities months after he approached him for his son’s study permit.
“I immediately inquired about the offer letter and found it to be fake, following which I withdrew my son’s file for study permit and approached another consultant,” he said.
Punjab cabinet minister for NRI affairs Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal said the state government has not only taken up the matter with the ministry of external affairs but also written to Canadian MPs having association with Punjab to take up the issue with the Canadian government so as to secure the future of these students.
“We will go all out to provide all kind of assistance to the affected students. I have personally interacted with a few students and given them assurances,” he said.
3 FIRs registered, LOC issued against Mishra
The Jalandhar Commissionerate police registered three FIRs against Brijesh Mishra and his two accomplices Rahul Bhargav and Gurnam Singh on March 17 and 27. Police had arrested Rahul, a Jalandhar resident, on March 27, while Brijesh and Gurnam remain on the run.
The cases were registered under Sections 420 (cheating), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 465 (for making forged documents), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.
Jalandhar police commissioner Kuldeep Singh Chahal said they have received only three to four complaints against Mishra so far and three cases have already been registered.
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“We have already issued a Look out Circular (LOC) against Mishra, who is evading arrest. As per our information, Mishra had shut all his operations and fled several months ago,” said Chahal.
Meanwhile, the Jalandhar district administration has already cancelled the licence of Mishra’s immigration firm under Section 4 and 6 of the Punjab Travel Professional’s Regulation Act 2014, which invokes cancellation of license, if found involved in any criminal activity.
Who is Brijesh Mishra?
Hailing from Thalwada in Darbhanga, Bihar, Brijesh Mishra owned the Education and Migration Services. More than 10 FIRs were registered against Mishra in different police stations mainly in Jalandhar, Faridkot and Malerkotla.
As per available information, Mishra started his consultancy firm, named Easy Way immigration consultancy, in 2013. Months later in 2014, he was caught committing fraud with students. His clout could be gauged from the fact that he either managed to strike a compromise with the complainant or ensure no action was taken against him. He was booked at Jaito in Faridkot and Malerkotla in 2021 and 2022, respectively, but no action was taken against him.
