E-Paper
Punjab: Jalandhar-based travel agent wanted for duping over 700 students nabbed
Jalandhar’s additional deputy commissioner of police Harinder Singh Gill said the police had already issued a look out circular against Mishra, who belongs to Thalwada in Darbhanga, Bihar, after he was found to be the kingpin of the scam
Over two years after duping hundreds of Indian students by giving them fake admission offer letters, the Jalandhar commissionerate police arrested wanted travel agent Brijesh Mishra from Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, New Delhi.
Jalandhar-based Mishra, against whom 20 FIRs were at multiple police stations across Punjab, fled from India before the scandal came to fore in March 2023. On June 23, 2023, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) apprehended Mishra while he was trying to sneak into the country illegally but he was set free after a few months.
Jalandhar’s additional deputy commissioner of police Harinder Singh Gill said the police had already issued a look out circular (LOC) against Mishra, who belongs to Thalwada in Darbhanga, Bihar, after he was found to be the kingpin of the scam.
“On June 24, the airport security detained Mishra on the basis of the LOC and immediately alerted Jalandhar police following which a special team was rushed to New Delhi for his formal custody. He boarded the flight from Toronto on June 22,” the ADCP said.
Sent to 7-day police custody
Mishra was produced in a local court, which remanded him into seven-day police custody, he added.
“A total of nine FIRs were registered against Mishra in Jalandhar’s division number 6 police station on the complaints of families of students, who were cheated on the name of fake offer letters,” Gill said.
In March 2023, Nearly 700 students were issued deportation notices by the CBSA over fraudulent offer letters that had been provided to them by Mishra while processing their study visas.
Even as the Canadian immigration ministry announced to freeze the deportation notices to the students, terming them “victims of fraud” the deportation issue led to widespread protests in Canada by Indian students.
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 zeroed in on Brijesh Mishra’s firm — Education and Migration — and slapped five charges including those for counselling misrepresentation, misrepresentation and unauthorised representation or advice for consideration, under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
20 FIRs registered against Mishra
Following the scam, Punjab Police registered 20-odd first information reports (FIRs) against Mishra and his accomplices from March to June, 2023.
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.
The Jalandhar district administration had also cancelled the licence of Mishra’s immigration firm under Sections 4 and 6 of the Punjab Travel Professionals Regulation Act, 2014, which invokes cancellation of licence, if found involved in any criminal activity.
Mishra launched Easy Way Immigration Consultancy in 2013 but months later in 2014, he was caught committing fraud with students. His clout can 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.
Deep-rooted immigration nexus
The fact that 700 students, who studied and worked in Canada for six years, are now facing deportation because they procured Canadian study permits on the basis of fake offer letters provided by Mishra’s firm, shows how deep-rooted the immigration nexus is.
Mishra’s Education and Migration Services sent the students to Canada on fake offer letters between 2016 and 2020. The students, who spent between ₹10 lakh and ₹30 lakh to go abroad, were not aware that they had paid for forged offer letters on which they got the study visa.
The fraud came to light only when the students applied for permanent residency and the CBSA found discrepancies and zeroed in on Mishra.
The students said the offer letters looked “so genuine” that even Canadian high commission officials did not find anything amiss.
It was only on arriving and visiting their respective colleges that they found that they were not registered in the institutions concerned. When they contacted Mishra, he made up excuses and got them enrolled in other colleges or asked them to wait a semester.
According to the then Canadian education policy, international students could change their college or university and even course on reaching Canada, a clause Mishra exploited.
