Canada's immigration minister is applauding the arrests of a Montreal couple and an Ontario man who were allegedly involved in a citizenship and tax scam that bilked taxpayers out of several hundred thousand dollars.
In what was described as a large-scale fraud, the scam helped about 300 foreign nationals to fraudulently obtain Canadian citizenship and Canadian travel documents, RCMP allege.
False income tax returns were filed for these people while they resided outside Canada, allowing them to receive benefits and tax refunds, including child-care credits and the GST low-income tax rebate, amounting to $500,000, police said.
The scheme began to unravel when officials with Citizenship and Immigration Canada became suspicious, leading to a two-and-a-half-year RCMP investigation that culminated with Thursday's arrests.
Jason Kenney, Canada's minister of citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism, said concerns were raised because the 300 people in question registered the same non-profit organization as their residential address.
Although authorities are doing what they can to combat these types of con artists, the problem is widespread, Kenney said.
"They live abroad, they hire a crooked consultant to establish fake proof of residency here and then they try to file the papers," he told CTV News Channel on Friday.
The problem is so bad that Kenney travelled to China, India and the Philippines last year to lobby their governments for help in cracking down on immigration fraud.
Kenney said the types of fraud "can range from people submitting fake documents to get a visitor's visa all the way to people paying up to $100,000 to someone to get a fake spousal sponsorship application."
Immigration lawyer Guidy Mamann described the idea behind the alleged scam as "very simple." Customers would obtain residency status in Canada through normal channels, and then pretend to live in the country while collecting federal tax benefits abroad.
"There's people who collect your mail, lease housing for you, do everything to give the illusion or the impression that you are actually living here and therefore entitled to those benefits," he said. "But it's all just smoke and mirrors."
While the arrests were "obviously a feather in the cap of the minister," Mamann said the problem may be common enough that many smaller-scale, less sophisticated operations will never be detected by law enforcement officials.
"I have no doubt that the expense to Canadian taxpayers is in the many millions of dollars because this is fairly widespread," he said from Toronto.
A bill to make it illegal to act as an unregistered citizenship consultant is currently before the House of Commons.
Meanwhile, the accused were scheduled to appear in court in Brampton, Ont., on Friday.
RCMP identified the suspects as Ahmad el-Akhal, 62, and his 53-year-old wife, Tahani Mohamad Hassan el-Akhal, of L'ile-Bizard, Que., and Hussam Hassan Ali Saif, 44, of Mississauga, Ont.
Ahmad el-Akhal faces a total of 58 charges under the Citizenship Act, Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Criminal Code, while his wife is charged with possession of proceeds obtained by crime.
Saif faces three charges under the Citizenship Act and one Criminal Code charge of conspiracy.
With files from The Canadian Press
