A CARTEL of migration agents linked to organised crime is running Melbourne's booming blackmarket in fake foreign student paperwork, federal investigators say.
The 10 registered migration agents employ a team of seven unregistered "facilitators" to sell bogus education and work experience documents to students. The students use them to apply for permanent residency.
The rort is called the "template scam".
The migration agents buy letterheads and blank certificates from crooked trade schools and workplaces for $1000 each, then facilitators fill them out and sell them to students for $5000 to $15,000.
An investigation by the Immigration Department and federal police is under way. An immigration spokesman said the size and complexity was "without precedent".
A federal source said the facilitators did the "dirty work". "If this was the drug trade, you would call them mules," the source said.
Investigators say 2500 international students have used fake documents in Melbourne this year. The Age has learnt that up to 5000 visas may be cancelled by the Immigration Department within six months because they were granted with illegal paperwork. The visa holders would be deported or detained.
Investigators believe a Chinese-born businessman active in template scams also uses an identity crime racket to sell students fake passports and birth certificates, manufacturing new identities for six-figure amounts and earning $1.5 million a year.
A report to the Migration Institute of Australia, the industry's peak body, this year warned of "sophisticated photo-morphing" techniques to make fake documents.
The institute's chief executive, Maurene Horder, speaking from India, said migration fraud was damaging Australia's reputation in international education, worth $15 billion a year to the economy. She said there were possibly many more people entering Australia illegally through student scams than people smuggling.
The template scam paperwork gives students passes in trade school courses and certifies 900 hours work in a course-related job. Investigators have identified 40 allegedly corrupt employers, all restaurants and printing workshops. The Age has obtained successfully used fake documents from a rooming house in the northern suburbs posing as a print workshop claiming students worked as "very competant" graphic pre-press tradesmen who would be "valuable, skilled worker(s)" in "the Australian labor workforce".
Some restaurants claiming to have employed hundreds of cookery students were found to be small takeaway shops with few real customers.
Two weeks ago investigators seized a USB stick — found in the pocket of jeans in a laundry basket in a suburban house — that contained 800 fake work references.
A 24-year-old Chinese-born woman, Xiaoyi "Kelly" Huang, of Carnegie, was charged last week with migration fraud offences, including possessing 75 blank templates.
She was released with strict bail conditions but was permitted to communicate with her "business partner", Qi "Gary" Zhou. Mr Zhou's city office was raided late last year but he was not charged.
The raid uncovered a "treasure trove", a source said, including 16 boxes of papers allegedly linking Hong Yun(鸿运国际), Mr Zhou's former company, with suspect businesses, including a restaurant and a CBD trades school recently closed down by the Government after failing an audit.
粗略解释一下（声明：不是正经翻译……）
由10名注册移民代理和7名未注册顾问组成的诈骗集团联手组织了墨尔本“繁荣”的假学生材料黑市。他们向想要申请PR的学生出售伪造的毕业证书、成绩单、工作经验，甚至身份证件（护照、出生公证等）。
这些移民代理买通了一些TAFE学院、单位，以每份$1,000的价格搞到了抬头信纸，空白证书。顾问们填写后再以每份$5,000到$15,000出售给学生。
移民部和联邦警察还在调查此案，移民局的发言人称，该案的规模和复杂度是史无前例的。
调查人员称今年墨尔本有2500国际学生使用了假材料。Age报获悉移民部在六个月内可能取消多达5000个涉嫌使用非法材料的签证。签证持有人将被驱逐出境或拘押。
调查人员确信在这一诈骗活动中活跃的一个中国生商人还向学生出售假护照、出生公证，生产了六位数的新身份，一年赚取一百五十万。
略...
调查人员已发现40个雇主涉嫌为TAFE学生900小时工作经验造假，全部都是参观或印刷工坊。一些餐馆声称雇佣了数百名厨师学徒，但事实上只是少有人光顾的小外卖店。
两周前，调查人员还发现了一个USB存储器，里面包含了800份假工作经验。
Kelly，黄Xiaoyi，女，24岁，中国出生，上周被以移民欺诈罪和持有75张空白模板被起诉。她目前正受严格的保释限制，但依然可以和合伙人Gary(周Qi)交流。
周在市中心(Little Collin St)的办公室去年底曾被搜捕，但当时他未被控诉。
消息称，那次搜捕中发现了“宝藏”，包括16箱涉及鸿运国际的材料。鸿运是周的公司之一，还有一家餐馆，及位于墨尔本CBD因未通过审计而于近期被关闭的一家TAFE学院。
此墨尔本中介涉嫌无牌代理移民，造假毕业证、假工作经验、假证件，侵吞代缴学费，并曾在墨尔本当地多家华文报纸上刊登虚假广告。
>>进入论坛 警钟长鸣:墨尔本一华人中介被捕 近5000毕业生PR恐被取消
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