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Immigration agent held for fraud

An Indo-Canadian has been charged with 14 counts of forgery under the Criminal Procedure Act and 14 counts of offering false letters of employment under the Immigration Act, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

RCMP Constable Marcus Sandhar said Santokh Singh Basra, 55, of Basra and Basra Associates Inc -- immigration consultants based in Ontario -- was arrested on January 31. He was later released on bail subject to his not contacting his 340 clients, and that he remains in Ontario and surrenders his passport.

According to Sandhar, the RCMP received information through "confidential sources that Mr Singh was falsifying letters for his clients".

Based on that information RCMP executed a search warrant on January 24 and seized 340 files from his office. "Those files, we discovered, contained copies of letterheads from dozens of companies offering jobs to clients," Sandhar said.

Most of these clients are from India, Fiji, New Zealand, South Africa, or Zimbabwe. "Bulk of the clients are from these five countries," he said.

"The people to whom those letters are given are not aware that these letters are not of any value... none of them have been able to get into Canada," he added.

But in a telephone interview with a reporter, Basra alleged that the search warrants were executed "when I was out of the country", and "there could be some involvement of one of my employees".

But he reiterated that the RCMP should not have made this information public.

Basra, who is a suburban Etobicoke School Board trustee and was a Progressive Conservative Party candidate in the 1997 federal election from Etobicoke North riding (constituency), suggested that it was his political position ["a member of the ethnic community and a rising star in politics..."] that had got him into trouble with the police.

"If I was a layman, there would have been nothing, but because I am a school trustee it becomes so much more," he said.

But in an official press release, Sandhar said, "It is alleged that most of these [340 clients, whose files RCMP seized] were provided letters offering employment from dozens of Toronto area companies.

"Investigation has revealed that while some of these companies do not exist, others are actual companies who had no idea that their letterheads or company names were being used to provide these forged offers of employment."

He said Basra was charging between US$1,500 and US$5,000 for the services of his company and since 1998 may have made CD$1 million.

Basra denied all these allegations, but refused to give details since the case is now before the court. His next appearance in Ontario's court of justice is on June 5.

If convicted he faces a maximum of 10 years in prison on each count of fraud and two years or a fine of CD$5000 on each count in case of violation of the Immigration Act, Sandhar said.

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