Feds bust 1,800 phony Canadians

OTTAWA - The federal government is moving to strip 1,800 people of their Canadian citizenship after concluding they became citizens using fraudulent means, QMI Agency has learned.

The massive investigation, unprecedented in its scale, involved the RCMP and the federal department of citizenship and immigration.

Since Confederation in 1867, the federal government has only ever revoked the citizenship of 67 people. Now it's ready to strip the citizenship of 1,800, although it will not be a quick process.

The 1,800 who are being targeted by the federal government will have the right to challenge the accusation in federal court, a process the department of justice itself says is complex and could take years to resolve.

And, throughout those legal proceedings, the affected individual will continue to enjoy all the right and privileges of Canadian citizenship.

Those caught in the investigation have now or will very shortly be informed the government intends to revoke their Canadian citizenship.

"These people are costing taxpayers a lot of money," said a senior government official who had knowledge of the investigation. "And they are undermining public support for immigration. We don't want to allow fraud like this."

Over the next day or so, the government is expected to provide details on the investigation and some information on where those accused of obtaining a fraudulent citizenship live.

Among other things, those who become Canadian citizens enjoy access to Canada's health care system and publicly funded benefits such as employment insurance and old age security.

Naturalized Canadians ­- those born in another country but who immigrate here and become citizens ­- can have their citizenship revoked if convicted of fraud in relation to their citizenship application or if their original admission to Canada as an immigrant was completed using fraudulent documents. Immigrants who knowingly conceal material circumstances in connection with their entry into Canada also risk revocation of citizenship.

BY DAVID AKIN, PARLIAMENTARY BUREAU CHIEF

JTF wrote:Most of those 1,800 have never been in Canada.

300 of them had the same office address given as their residence.

Only 3 or 4 'immigration consultants' were involved.

Time to tighten our immigration policy BIG TIME!!!

grumpy old man wrote:Where the hell is the good investigative journalism that would help us to avoid the speculation?

I know I probably understood the 300 home/office comment to mean 300 different home/office applicants. Given what is now coming out it would seem more likely that it is 300 identical home/office applicants.

In a later interview, Kenney said the vast majority of the 1,800 allegedly fraudulent citizenships were facilitated by three or four immigration consultants.
The consultants marketed their services to people living primarily in overseas tax havens or in certain Middle Eastern countries, where Kenney said a Canadian passport holder can earn double the salary.

During an extensive two-year investigation with the RCMP, Kenney said his department employed sophisticated computer technology to identify suspicious patterns in citizenship applications. Among other things, it uncovered one office address in Mississauga, Ont., which was listed as the home residence for more than 300 applicants.
"We started to put together the patterns of questionable activities, questionable addresses, and we chased this stuff down and found that much of it was facilitated by the same handful of consultants."