Immigration mega-fraud in Canada by chinese

Immigration mega-fraud: the rich Chinese immigrants to Canada who don’t really want to live there.

The case of Xun “Sunny” Wang, a Vancouver-area consultant jailed for masterminding the biggest immigration fraud in Canadian history, is startling in scope.

Wang, 46, who was sentenced on October 23 to seven years in prison, conducted his fraud on an almost industrial scale, as he helped rich Chinese clients maintain Canadian permanent-resident status and later obtain citizenship.

Chinese passports both real and fake were shipped in bulk to the mainland, where professional forgers would doctor them to make it look like their owners had been present in Canada when they had actually been in China. Wang would set up his clients in fake jobs at his firms, printing business cards for them and issuing pay slips - adding insult to injury, their fake salaries were so low his wealthy clients were able to file tax returns that allowed them to claim from Canadian coffers tax benefits intended for the working poor. 

Letters from schools and lawyers were also forged, as well as lease agreements. Fake mailing addresses and phone numbers were set up.

From 2006 until his arrest in 2014, Wang and his employees at his unlicenced New Can and Wellong immigration consultancies in Richmond are known to have helped 1,200 clients cheat immigration rules. In all, they paid Wang C$10 million (HK$59 million) for his illegal services, the Provincial Court of British Columbia found.

Yet the most significant aspect of Wang’s case is neither the scale of his operation, nor its sophistication and audacity.

It is the motivation of his clients.

Immigration fraud as the public typically understands it involves various schemes to allow unqualified people to live and work in Canada.

Yet, bizarrely, Wang’s case involved clients willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to AVOID living in Canada when they were perfectly entitled to do so, having already obtained permanent resident status.

Understanding their motivation is key to understanding how Wang found such a steady stream of customers.

Wang’s clients wanted to be able to maintain their PR status without actually living in the Great White North, since their jobs and businesses were back in China. And by faking their presence in Canada they would eventually be able to claim Canadian citizenship, with all the privileges it confers, including the right to live in Canada – eventually.