(Staff article from The ABC NEWS AUS - 7:30 REPORT on 17 Sept 2024.)
So she was thrilled when she received her enrolment
certificate for Willows Institute, a private college in Adelaide last December.
"Everyone here was expecting me to leave any day. They even bought bags so
I could start packing," she told 7.30.
Prinjal hails from Seedpur, a small village in Haryana's northern state. Her family turned to a migration agency, World Visa Advisors, located in Chandigarh, about two hours away. The agency assured them that all necessary paperwork was completed: She had passed her English exam, proven her genuine student status, cleared her medical test, and paid all the required fees into the agency's accounts.
The final step
was securing a student visa from the Australian government. "I was so
excited," she said. Prinjal was due to start her business diploma in
July. "My parents wanted me to go
abroad and become independent so they could tell people in the village and city
that their daughter has done well in Australia."
Prinjal was due
to start her business diploma this July, but as the date got closer she still
had not received her visa. Her older brother Ajay decided to visit the World
Visa Advisors office. "He found the door was locked. Someone else in the
building told him the agent had locked up and left 15 days back," Prinjal
said.
Ajay says his
heart sank. "This was a huge fraud. These are not good days for us,"
Ajay said crying. Prinjal's father Satpal is a farmer. He owns an acre of paddy
fields and drives a cab to make ends meet. Prinjal's father took out a $13,000
loan to help fund Prinjal's dream of studying abroad
Satpal says he
took out a $13,000 loan against his farm to pay for his daughter's college course
and the agent's fees. Now it's all gone. "I've been given 11 months to pay
off the loan," Satpal told 7.30. "Otherwise I have to give up my
farmland."
The fraud unravels
Ajay filed a complaint with Chandigarh police who informed him that all the documents they had paid for, including the offer letter from Willows Institute and the certificate of enrolment from Australia's Department of Education, were fake.
Prinjal was devastated. "I just thought, 'How can this happen to me?' I felt like all my dreams had been shattered," he said. Prinjal's family were told the documents they received were fake. The family tried to contact World Visa Advisors again with no luck. A few days later, in early July, news reports revealed that the agents had been arrested for fraud.
Police confirmed to 7.30 that staff from the company
had been held for a few days after four different victims made similar
complaints. Authorities say the agency has defrauded scores of families across
northern India by promising visas to Australia, with the alleged fraud
totalling more than $1.2 million so far.
"They don't
care if we live or die. They just wanted our money and now they've fled. Now we
have to chase them begging for our money," Aarti said. Her daughter
Kaniska lodged her student visa file through the same agency.
Kaniska also
applied for her student visa through World Visa Advisors."Now I have a
mental condition. I don't remember many things," Kaniska said. 7.30 made
multiple attempts to contact World Visa Advisors and its agents but received no
response.
Ghost institutes and their toll
As part of the
investigation, 7.30 also attempted to contact Willows Institute in Adelaide. The
team visited the college at different times of the day on three separate occasions,
but each time found it closed.
Willows Education Australia Pty Ltd, the company under which the institute operates, has had three directors since it was registered in 2019. The second director, listed on the institute's paperwork, ceased his duties in July. 7.30 managed to contact the first director, but he refused to answer questions about the institute.
Willows has a
minimal online presence, including a Facebook page with 20 followers and an
Instagram account with zero posts. A website screenshot for Willows Institute
with a picture of a student holding a textbook.
A spokesperson for the Australian Skills Quality Authority, the national regulator for Australia's vocational education and training sector, confirmed Willows Institute was under audit after receiving a referral from the Department of Home Affairs in May last year.
Its registration
was then cancelled in June this year "due to the seriousness of the issues
identified and in order to mitigate the risk of any further harm". The
regulator has also received a complaint indicating that Willows Institute
"may not be genuine".
The current
director of Willows Institute, Dilpreet
Singh, rejected that claim, telling 7.30 in an email that Willows Institute
was "legitimate" and it was challenging the registration cancellation
at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
Police at one Chandigarh station have estimated that
nearly 400 families have fallen victim to visa fraud, collectively losing close
to $4.5 million in the first half of 2024. Nearly 400 families have lost $4.5
million to visa fraud. Last month a
father from Punjab died by suicide after his daughter was given a fake
admission letter for a different Australian college.
The woman
declined an interview but spoke to 7.30 over text. "I and my family are
unable to overcome this sorrow," she texted. "It is very painful to
lose a father and he was very upset because of the fraud done with us. "In
the name of sending them abroad, they ruin the future of the students. As they
ruined my future too."
New cap on student numbers
In August, the
Australian government announced a cap on international student enrolments,
limiting intake to 270,000 starting next year. Over the past year, the federal
government has more than doubled the student visa application fee, introduced
higher English proficiency requirements, and implemented stricter criteria to
determine a student's genuine status.
These changes
were introduced to curb net migration and stamp out fraud in the industry. They
were also intended to prevent visa switching as a backdoor entry to working in
Australia. The changes have affected Indian students, who make up the
second-largest group of international students in Australia.
Last year,
126,000 Indian students were studying in the country, a 26 per cent increase
compared to the previous year. Many of these students hail from the northern
Indian states of Punjab and Haryana. Migration experts have told 7.30 that
recent changes by the Australian government have made it more challenging for
students to obtain study visas.
Sonia Dhawan is
the founder of a popular visa company in India.
"Education is a basic necessity of a human being, you can't deny
that. Australia is making it difficult," said Sonia Dhawan, founder of
Grey Matters, a popular visa company in India. Ms Dhawan noted a steady drop in
student numbers across her 73 branches and criticised the changes.
"Australia is not able to control the students who are switching colleges, so they are not able to control the problem in their own house, so they've started cleaning offshore," she said. "They are giving the punishment to offshore people [who are] genuine."
Ms Dhawan
believes that rather than curbing the problem, restricting access to Australia
has fuelled a rise in unethical practices. She says an honest agent will tell their
client their chances to study in Australia are limited. "The fraud will
say, 'You give me this much money and I will send you by this or that way.' So
this will increase more fraud," she said.
In a statement,
a spokesperson from the Department of Home Affairs said the "student visa
regulations are intended to ensure that only genuine students are granted visas
to study in Australia".
Prinjal's family
has criticised the police for delays in their investigation. "Why aren't
the police investigating these frauds? They should be beaten with sticks so
that they do not target others like us," Prinjal's grandmother said. Her
priority is to recover the money and focus on her granddaughter's future."We
will send her abroad. We will surely send her abroad. We will send her to
Australia."
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