Agencies : London
An Indian citizen who arrived as a student in
2000 and went on to perpetuate a series of immigration scams to earn hundreds
of thousands of pounds by helping many Indian citizens and others to stay in
Britain illegally, has been jailed for 10 years.
Vijay Sorthia, 35, will be deported to India
at the end of 10-year sentence, while his 31-year-old his wife, Bhawna , who
helped him carry out the scams, was jailed for 15 months and also faces
deportation to India.
The couple have three children.
The sentences were pronounced in the
Isleworth Crown Court yesterday.
When Sorthia was arrested at his house in
north-west London in May 2010, officials of the UK
Sorthia and his wife ran an immigration
advisory company called Migration Gurus.
UKBA spokesman Adam Edwards said: "Mr
Sorthia had dozens of clients who had applied to the Home Office for extensions
to their visas, claiming to be 'highly skilled migrants'. They were mainly
Indian and most of them were already here".
Sorthia had accreditation as an adviser with
the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC), which is linked to
the Home Office.
The accreditation enabled him to assist
individuals with claims for asylum, as well as immigration, residence and
citizenship applications.
Edwards added: "What the couple did was
set up a number of cover companies with bank accounts registered in their own
names which would provide clients with pay slips and wage payments to make it
look like they were employed as things like IT specialists and earning much
more than they actually were".
Between 2008 and 2010, the couple helped more
than 160 clients' illegally gain visa extensions by providing them false
documents to claim that they were highly skilled migrants.
Fifteen clients who benefited from the
Sorthia scam have been convicted and sentenced between 8 to 10 months in
prison.
Fourteen of them have been banished from UK
The 'clients' reportedly paid the couple
between 3,000 and 4,000 pounds for their service.
"When officers searched Sorthia's
property they found approximately 330,000 pounds in cash," Edwards said.
Most of that money, 270,000 pounds, was in a holdall in the back of a cupboard
but other bundles of money were also discovered, which had clients' numbers and
names on them.
UKBA's senior investigating officer Robert
Coxhead said: "Vijay and Bhawna Sorthia knowingly flouted the UK UK
"The amount of cash found at their home
illustrates how this was, and we will now begin the process of stripping them
of those assets using the Proceeds of Crime Act".
The court was told that following their
arrest in May 2010, the couple sold their London
house and transferred 466,000 pounds out of the country and went to India Britain
Sorthia was convicted of obtaining or seeking
to obtain leave to enter UK
by deception on or before 24 October 2004, conspiracy to defraud between 1
April 2008 and 30 September 2010, possession of 332,000 pounds of criminal
property, removing criminal property from England
and Wales
Bhawna was convicted of being concerned in an
arrangement to facilitate the acquisition, retention, use or control of
criminal property by Vijay Sorthia and others before 30 September 2010,
removing criminal property from England and Wales and possessing articles for
use in fraud.
Sentencing the couple at Isleworth Crown
Court, Judge Andrew McDowall said Sorthia's actions risked 'undermining' Britain
He warned: "During difficult economic
times, it becomes easier for those who are motivated by racial motives to start
casting aspersions against those that are properly and legitimately in the
country by trying to paint everyone of that ethnic group as tainted in some
way, over the wrongdoings done by a limited number."
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