Illegal immigrant guilty of biggest visa scam seem in Britain
AN INDIAN illegal immigrant was found guilty today of masterminding the single biggest visa scam ever seen in Britain.
Rakhi Shahi, 31, was convicted of conspiracy to defraud, handling criminal property and immigration offences at Isleworth Crown Court.
Her husband and criminal accomplice, disgraced solicitor Jatinder Kumar Sharma, 44, pleaded guilty to his role in the conspiracy before the trial.
A third woman, Neelam Sharma, 38, who may also be Sharma’s wife, was convicted of handling some of the cash that poured into the business.
But the former teacher was cleared of conspiracy to defraud and immigration offences.
Jatinder Sharma and Shahi ran a fraud factory and hid behind a web of false identities and documentation.
They created thousands of counterfeit documents including degree certificates, tax and wage forms, references and academic records.
The three, who lived together in Clarence Street, Southall, ran an immigration consultancy business known as Univisas.
The enterprise was at the centre of a web of false colleges and corrupt employees of genuine institutions who provided bogus documents.
Police suspect more than a thousand people, the majority of whom came from the Indian sub-continent, used the business to cheat border controls.
The case included a barrage of criticism of officials at the UK Border Agency, Home Office and Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC).
It highlighted continuing fears that bogus colleges have been used as an illegal gateway into Britain for thousands.
Prosecutor Francis Sheridan said the fraudsters took advantage of shambolic Government checks to make hundreds of thousands of pounds.
He said the mass of evidence gathered for the case presented a “damning indictment” of failures by the Government departments.
Home office employees failed to spot that employment certificates from across India were almost identical and that wage slips did not add up.
Metropolitan Police officers and officials from the UK Border Agency swooped on Univisas, based in Southall, west London, in February 2008.
They discovered a mountain of 90,000 documents including false university certificates, academic records, bank statements and pay slips.
Search teams uncovered passports, 50 different types of headed notepaper, 150 ink stamps and £22,500 cash.
Investigators seized 980 individual files, and of a sample 117 analysed in detail, 113 were found to contain fraudulent information.
The scam was hugely profitable with more than £1.5 million paid to the company in two years. Police have seized £420,000 and are hunting more money stashed abroad.
The fraudsters used a web of 17 bank accounts to try to launder the money. When she was arrested Neelam Sharma had £147,00 in nine accounts and Shahi held £95,000 in six.
