[Assam] [assam] UK immigration scam: Indian couple sentenced

[bhuban.baruah]

Times of India (May 19, 2012)

LONDON: An Indian citizen who arrived as a student in 2000 and went on 
to perpetuate a series of immigration scams to earn hundreds of 
thousands of pounds by helping many Indian citizens and others to stay 
in Britain illegally, has been jailed for 10 years.

Vijay Sorthia, 35, will be deported to India at the end of his 10-year 
sentence, while his 31-year-old his wife, Bhawna Sorthia, who helped 
him carry out the scams, was jailed for 15 months and also faces 
deportation to India.

The couple have three children. The sentences were pronounced in the 
Isleworth Crown Court on Wednesday.

When Sorthia was arrested at his house in north-west London in May 
2010, officials of the UK Border Agency (UKBA) found over 330,000 
pounds in cash.

Sorthia and his wife ran an immigration advisory company called 
Migration Gurus.

UKBA spokesman Adam Edwards said: "Mr Sorthia had dozens of clients who 
had applied to the Home Office for extensions to their visas, claiming 
to be 'highly skilled migrants'. They were mainly Indian and most of 
them were already here".

Sorthia had accreditation as an adviser with the Office of the 
Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC), which is linked to the Home 
Office.

The accreditation enabled him to assist individuals with claims for 
asylum, as well as immigration, residence and citizenship applications.

Edwards added: "What the couple did was set up a number of cover 
companies with bank accounts registered in their own names which would 
provide clients with pay slips and wage payments to make it look like 
they were employed as things like IT specialists and earning much more 
than they actually were".

Between 2008 and 2010, the couple helped more than 160 'clients' 
illegally gain visa extensions by providing them false documents to 
claim that they were highly skilled migrants.

Fifteen clients who benefited from the Sorthia scam have also been 
convicted and sentenced between 8 to 10 months in prison.

Fourteen of them have been banished from UK. The 'clients' reportedly 
paid the couple between 3,000 pounds and 4,000 pounds for their service.

"When officers searched Sorthia's property they found approximately 
330,000 pounds in cash," Edwards said.

Most of that money, 270,000 pounds, was in a holdall in the back of a 
cupboard but other bundles of money were also discovered, which had 
clients' numbers and names on them.

UKBA's senior investigating officer Robert Coxhead said: "Vijay and 
Bhawna Sorthia knowingly flouted the UK's immigration laws. They ran a 
sophisticated scam designed to help people who would otherwise have no 
right to be here to stay in the UK.

"The amount of cash found at their home illustrates how lucrative this 
was, and we will now begin the process of stripping them of those 
assets using the Proceeds of Crime Act".

The court was told that following their arrest in May 2010, the couple 
sold their London house and transferred 466,000 pounds out of the 
country and went to India.

They were arrested again after they returned to Britain in July 2011.

Sorthia was convicted of obtaining or seeking to obtain leave to enter 
UK by deception on or before 24 October 2004, conspiracy to defraud 
between 1 April 2008 and 30 September 2010, possession of 332,000 
pounds of criminal property, removing criminal property from England 
and Wales and possessing articles for use in fraud.

Bhawna was convicted of being concerned in an arrangement to facilitate 
the acquisition, retention, use or control of criminal property by 
Vijay Sorthia and others before 30 September 2010, removing criminal 
property from England and Wales and possessing articles for use in 
fraud.

Sentencing the couple at Isleworth Crown Court, Judge Andrew McDowall 
said Sorthia's actions risked 'undermining' Britain's immigration 
controls and 'eroding public confidence' that migrants had arrived 
lawfully.

He warned: "During difficult economic times, it becomes easier for 
those who are motivated by racial motives to start casting aspersions 
against those that are properly and legitimately in the country by 
trying to paint everyone of that ethnic group as tainted in some way, 
over the wrongdoings done by a limited number."