If you walk into any restaurant, pub or shop in Dublin, you will likely find an international student working there. If the question arises whether they are aware of a scam involving fake language school letters, the answer is often “Yes”.
It is “very, very popular,” says Felipe, a Brazilian resident in Dublin who paid hundreds of euros for forged documents and flew from Brazil to Ireland posing as an English language student. “It was a dream [to live abroad],” he says.
Like many Latin Americans, Felipe was attracted by visas facilitating working part-time while studying, although with the scam he would “have more time to work… and make money”.
Felipe heard about visa fraud while he was living in Brazil. A friend of his shared a WhatsApp number with a United States country code. Felipe closed the deal before flying to Ireland and paid €1,150 to a Revolut account for the false documentation.
“They send everything we need… an enrolment letter with the school, health insurance, and even the attendance certificate for visa renewals. I’m not sure if the insurance was false. When I found out that everything was wrong, then they started to treat me so badly,” he says.
David Russell, chairman of Progressive College Network and director of NED College, has gathered information on individuals and groups providing forged letters and says the communications come from locations such as the UK, Portugal, Spain, Brazil, Bangladesh and India.
When he received evidence of an individual offering fake letters for English language education providers, Russell contacted the immigration authorities but “was told that they could do nothing and suggested I contact the Gardaí”. Russell says “this was a year ago, and the fake letters certainly have not stopped”.
Russell says he “found evidence… bank account details, screenshots of conversations that were happening” often via WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
“I have never seen a photo of any of them [the fraudsters],” says a Brazilian in Dublin who availed of the scam.
“I only know people who have succeeded in this scam,” Felipe says, but things did not go completely smoothly in his case.
When immigration officials initially rejected his documents, he says he “had a bad fight” with the scammers.
“I was asking for my money back for about a month, but they always came back to me with the exact same answers: ‘We’ve asked for the school’, ‘We’re waiting for the school to refund’... It was exhausting. When one of them said, ‘Good luck,’ I realised that was it,” he says.
Jane Langley, director of studies at SEDA College, says another fraud has caught their attention: students presenting forged sick notes to avoid attending classes. Students who aim to renew their student visa permission must have at least 85 per cent attendance, and if they do not attend classes, this may lead to their expulsion.
Langley says the school “actually checks with the doctors if the notes are real” and some “look quite authentic”.
[ Irish ‘ghost student’ visa scam raises alarm in Dublin language schoolsOpens in new window ]
“With the pandemic, everything went online, and then people started bringing in notes from psychologists in Brazil to explain that they were sick,” Langley says.
She says her school expelled a student two weeks ago due to this fraud. “Ireland doesn’t want people who think that they can take advantage of being here without respecting the system,” she says.
Ana, a Brazilian woman who was caught by authorities using the scam, says she first negotiated with a Brazilian man who said he had an agency known as “Adventures” and that, alongside his partner, they ran the business in Ireland. Ana lost €750 as the Immigration Service Delivery (ISD) unit at the Department of Justice denied her visa because the school did not confirm her enrolment.
Screenshots of the conversations seen by The Irish Times show some replies from the scammers. In one, they say they “are trying to get [the refund] from the school” and hope to give Ana “some good news” in one of her attempts to recover the money invested.
Ana reported the visa scam to the ISD with the information she had on the scammers last year but said she is “still waiting for their reply”. In correspondence with the ISD, Ana explained what happened and said she “made a mistake trusting people that shouldn’t have been trusted”.
“It made me really scared as I put myself in the position to being involved in a crime,” she said.
A deportation order can be issued against non-European Economic Area nationals who are without lawful permission to remain in the State.
In a statement, the Department of Justice said “all cases of suspected fraud are referred to the GNIB [Garda National Immigration Bureau]”. In some circumstances, it said, those found to be using false documents “may not be allowed to appeal the visa decision and may be blocked from getting an Irish visa for five years”.
“Two of my friends lost money with this. People need to know what is going on because I don’t want anyone to go through what happened to me,” Ana says.
* Felipe and Ana are pseudonyms used to protect interviewees’ identities.
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