Immigration agent Brijesh Mishra pleads guilty in international students fraud case in Canada

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An Indian immigration agent at the centre of a scam to cheat students from India by issuing fake college admission to procure Canadian visas has been sentenced to three years in jail after he pleaded guilty before a court in Vancouver to immigration offences, according to a media report.

 

Brijesh Mishra, 37, was arrested in Surrey, British Columbia, in June 2023.by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA).

 

Mishra was accused of involvement in a scandal related to fake Canadian college admission letters. The situation had put hundreds of students from Punjab and other Indian states at risk of deportation due to the fraudulent college admission letter scam.

 

Dressed in a red jumpsuit, Mishra stood inside a Vancouver courtroom and apologised for a slew of Canadian immigration offences.

 

Mishra pleaded guilty to three charges related to Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, including misrepresentation and communicating false information, CBC News reported.

“I’m sorry,” he told the courtroom. “I cannot change the past, but I can make sure I do not do it again in the future.”

Crown and defence lawyers issued a joint sentencing submission asking for three years in prison, to which the judge agreed was sufficient.

“I would say he did show genuine remorse,” CBC News quoted Gagan Nahal, Mishra’s defence lawyer, as saying.

“The pleas that were entered were clearly a demonstration of his remorse because he did have a right to run a trial in this.” Nahal said 12 victims came forward during the CBSA’s investigation.

After serving his sentence in Canada, Mishra is expected to be deported to India where he faces further criminal charges, including a human smuggling offence. The maximum penalty for that offence is death.