Sentence no comfort to bilked immigrant

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 31/10/2012 (4943 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A four-and-a-half-year prison sentence handed to a Winnipegger who bilked poor foreigners out of hundreds of thousands of dollars is no comfort, says one of his victims.

“For me, it does not make any difference if he will be sentenced to death or life in prison,” said Yadu Pandey. “He devastated 111 people.”

Bradley Jacobson, a former immigration consultant, was sentenced in Winnipeg Monday for making fraudulent job offers to people overseas. Pandey, a Nepalese-Canadian, was helping friends in Nepal look for work in Canada. The southern Ontario man checked out Jacobson’s offer of jobs in the oil industry and his credentials. The Winnipeg businessman seemed legitimate, was listed as a member of the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council and had been interviewed by media and won a business award, Pandey said.

Jacobson’s company, CISI Canadian Immigration Strategies Inc., promised the Nepalese people two-year labourer jobs in the oilsands paying $17.45 hour, said Pandey.

In Nepal, labourers make $8 a day and the oilsands jobs were a chance to work hard and earn good money, he said. They each paid Jacobson $1,300 for a crack at jobs in Canada that didn’t exist, said Pandey. He borrowed money on his credit card to help people get the fake jobs, he said. Now Pandey, 56, says he will be paying it back until he dies and his reputation in the Nepalese community has been destroyed because of Jacobson.

Jacobson pleaded guilty to six offences under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Criminal Code and has been ordered to pay more than $380,000 in restitution. If that money ever comes, it will be too late for many, said Pandey.

“One guy in Nepal was in treatment for cancer and now he can’t afford treatment. He doesn’t have the money to pay his bill,” said Pandey.

Some Nepalese borrowed money at a rate of 36 per cent interest, used their life savings and sold everything they had for to take advantage of the bogus opportunity, Pandey said.

— Carol Sanders