NEW DELHI: Three years ago, on January 19, 2022, a Gujarati family—39-year-old Jagdish Patel, wife Vaishali (35), daughter (11) and son (3)—froze to death on the US-Canada border in Manitoba while trying to cross over to the US illegally. The traffickers had left the family in the middle of a snowstorm at -37 degrees Celsius. Three years later, a money laundering probe by the ED against the agents involved in the Patel family case has found an international syndicate of human traffickers that includes at least 260 colleges in Canada that issued student visas to “illegal migrants” to take the Canadian route to the US.
Probe on over transactions of Canadian colleges and how much money they made from ‘illegals’
Compared to the donkey route, those who found the student visa route more convenient paid around Rs 50–60 lakh each to the agents to arrange their student visas and travel to Canada before being “pushed” into the US. The probe into the transactions of the Canadian colleges and how much money they made from such “illegal migrants” is still in progress.
“Investigations reveal that to send Indians to the US illegally, the agents arranged their admission in colleges/universities in Canada and sent them on student visas. Once in Canada, instead of joining the college, they illegally crossed the US-Canada border,” ED said.
On December 10 and 19, ED carried out searches at eight premises across Mumbai, Nagpur, Gandhinagar, and Vadodara on several agents who were involved in sending illegal migrants through these Canadian colleges.
“During searches, it was found that around 35,000 illegal migrants are sent abroad every year by just two agents, based in Mumbai and Nagpur,” ED said on Wednesday. The probe also found that around 1,700 agents/partners in Gujarat and around 3,500 across India were involved in this racket. ED estimates that more than 800 agents are still active despite a multi-agency crackdown on them.
The agency said its probe found that at least two such agents based in Mumbai and Nagpur have signed agreements with several universities and colleges abroad to admit students on a commission basis. All potential illegal migrants are then prepared with the required documentation for a student visa.
ED seized Rs 19 lakh in the accused’s bank accounts, documents, and digital devices during the searches. The money laundering case is based on an FIR registered by Ahmedabad police against Bhavesh Patel, an agent involved in arranging the travel of Jagdish Patel (of Dingucha village) and his family in 2022.
