Archive for May 30th, 2010

MacLeans Magazine Reports on Fraudulent Canadian Immigration Consultants

Henry Chang | May 30, 2010 in Canadian Immigration | Comments (0)

Image of Canadian Passport

We have previously reported that the Canadian Federal Government is in the process of introducing new legislation to crack down on fraudulent Canadian immigration consultants. One such operation was described in an article published by MacLeans.ca on May 29, 2010.

The article describes Mr. Ehab Lotfi’s website, which promoted the “Canadian Immigration Lottery.” Of course, no such lottery exists in Canada. For $115.00, applicants paid for their chance to win Canadian permanent residence. In reality, they were entering a lottery to win a free visa application, which would be prepared without charge to the “lucky” winners.

At the time, Lotfi insisted that his site was an innocent “marketing tool,” and not a scam to trick the naive and the desperate into thinking they could really win a spot in Canada. But when industry regulators launched an investigation, Lotfi opted for a name change – the “Canadian Immigration Lottery” became “CIFA” (Canadian Immigration Financial Assistance).

Today, the controversial website is called “canadagreencard.org.” Of course, Canada does not give out green cards either – that is a term used to describe United States permanent residence.

The full article appears here.