Case Study Of Indian Businessman Involved In Alleged Visa Fraud

The Ponzi scheme history, definitions and fundamentals

Discuss about the Case Study of Indian Business Man Involved In Alleged Visa Fraud.

Financial crime has become very popular in the world today. It is a significant problem in the society and has a lot of adverse effects. This crime allows one to benefit from getting revenues, assets or money that belong to someone. Financial crime may involve fraud. Examples include fraud in cheese, mortgage, corporate security, banks, healthcare and market. All these could occur during trading or point of sale. They may also cover tax evasion, bribery, embezzlements, money laundering, and production of counterfeit products. Financial crime may also include criminal acts such as cybercrime, robbery or murder. Financial crime may be in two forms: One is where one becomes wealthy through dishonest acquisition from another person by forging his documents while other involves those benefitting themselves (Corbett, Baucus and Mitteness 2016).  

These crimes may be carried out by an individual, corporation or group whereas the victims may be individual, corporations, government and the entire economy. Our research on financial crime involves the YABS services company. Here, a man by the name Avniesh Bhardwaj scammed people in two ways. The first one is that he was involved in the production of visa while the other was promising fake employment to the people. He did this by giving them phony employment letters and nominations (Corbett, Baucus and Mitteness 2016). This man worked individually, however, the victims were his relatives, students, and ordinary people. He used to give excuses when the visas delayed and this would prompt his victims to pay extra to fast-track visas. He never forged, but took the people’s advantage of wanting to travel abroad (Hershfield, Cohen and Thompson 2012).

Ponzi scheme is freedmen investment where the operator provides fabricated reports to generate revenues and incomes from older investments rather than the legitimate business activities or profits for financial gain (Corbett, Baucus and Mitteness 2016). This can be done either by individual or corporations. Companies using these schemes strive very hard so they can attract clients to get the investments (Williams 2017).  This scheme was originated by a man known as Ponzi. Here, his company, the Security Exchange Company promised a 50% return in forty-five days. He did not initially invest the money but distributed it equally and told them that it had made a profit (Harrison and Bukstein 2017).  The Ponzi scheme had various characteristics:

•    Assures investors of high returns and title risks
•    The investors are not allowed to view any official paperwork of their investments
•    Investment strategy is too secretive and also too complex
•    Investors can never withdraw from these schemes easily since they sign contracts that they have to fulfill
•    The flow of return in this scheme is very consistent even when the market forces are not consistent
•    Clients face trouble removing/withdrawing their money

The Ponzi scheme Related to YASB Case Study

There are other types of similar activities of Ponzi schemes such as the pyramid scheme. An example was the “public likes” scheme. The difference with Ponzi is that the pyramid schemes fail too fast than expected. In the case with “public likes”, most people had invested and upgraded, but it collapsed all of a sudden (Harrison and Bukstein 2017). Another example is the economic bubble schemes (Wilson 2017). 

In this case, an Indian businessman, Avniesh Bhardwaj, the sole owner and runs the company, YABS services was involved in fraud and scamming activities (Corbett, Baucus and Mitteness 2016). YABS Services was a migration company that dealt in the production of visas to the people; students, being the most victims. He used to charge migrants lots of money and claimed to give them visas and job employment to head to Australia. Most of his visa claims failed, and he did not refund this money to the owners (Albrecht, Morales, Baldwin and Scott 2017). His website went down, but his Facebook page is still active and says he offers student visas and employment too. He also fooled his cousin, who worked with him, and now his phone contacts have been switched off (Gibson 2016).

YABS Services made all the application to the clients who were charged $30000 and assured them that the applications would be approved in three to four months. His clients were also assured of refund in case of rejected visa claims while other applicants were told to apply with $50000. In some cases, applications were made and rejected, but the client was never informed of those scenarios. This businessman also overcharged the customers to get these visas (Vasek and Moore 2018).

Mr. Avniesh’s cousin, Virgin Marshall wrote a complaint on how his cousin scammed him. He says that he saw his cousin start this business and also he could use his phone numbers to advertise his business on newspapers (Corbett, Baucus and Mitteness 2016). He also took property to run his business. His primary concern was, he never knew he would take advantage of people and gain profits (Corbett, Baucus and Mitteness 2016). When he told him that he wanted to settle in Australia, he did all the sums and said he needed around 18 lacs. He could not afford to make this payment, but Avniesh assisted him to get a loan of 7lac after eight months. He would later start to his visa after some few months. He was then told by Avniesh that they needed some money to support his role in getting this visa and that would also help him keep his visa intact and enable him to gain citizenship (Corbett, Baucus and Mitteness 2016). Avniesh never allowed him to view his account.  When the cash was increased, he was told that the increment would support his file. When he called Avniesh to tell him he had no extra, Avniesh disconnected his calls and blocked his numbers (Fu et al. 2018).

Analysis

In Pakistan, Sohail, a young man was also duped by the YABS services. When his visa was almost expiring, he looked for another one that would enable him to stay in Australia (Wilson 2017). He got an advert on an IT job which was offered by the YABS services claiming that they could offer him an employer-sponsored visa (Ruggiero 2017). YABS Services sent him some employment contracts and applications showing him his application was being processed (Fu et al. 2018).  After paying the money, he was not contacted back. He had borrowed loan from friends and relatives to get the visa and promised to refund after his qualification for the job. He says the application was made, but he could not even contact the director of the company. Moreover, he was not even given explanations as to why his application was rejected (Ruggiero 2017).

Another complaint said that he took his $23000 and he was promised an ENS 186 visa within three months since the employer had replied immediately. After few days he demanded an extra $13000 for lodging visa which was not acceptable (Fu et al. 2018). He further argues that the businessman is not transparent since has not provided his background information.

These people have had claims on how they were fraud and issued the complaint; they think that mar Avinesh is a compelling person since he got pictures with well-known politicians and they think no justice will be done to them or they will not also receive their payments back since he cannot be located and found (Fu et al. 2018). Those are two examples of stories, but there are many more persons who suffered from the YABS Company. One spokesperson so this story and allegedly claimed that it was fake news (Wilson 2017). 

This YABS issue has become more common, and the migration lawyer had to intervene this case, and they had to put on some specific emphasis so as to reduce these scenarios of visa fraud to the citizens. He said that in the employer sponsorship you have to get the job in Australia before you start applying for the visa (Deason, Rajgopal and Waymire 2015).

The migration department also changed their primary focus of migration to supply-driven migration whereby you show all the skills and qualifications for them to demand the visas to head to Australia (Albrecht et al. 2017). They needed more driven people to those embassies, and they would claim they need those people also in their country first they also created the employer exploitation or the migration agent exploitation so as to make it difficult for one to access a visa on his own but has to undergo a process for you to acquire one (Masciandaro 2017).

He also said it is difficult for people to get refunded back their money after falling to unscrupulous operators which leads to critical variable standards in the industry. This is because it is challenging to locate this person when they have committed the crime, and also they tend to have proven that the application was made only that it was rejected by the migration processes so there is no way they can refund you (Deason, Rajgopal and Waymire 2015).

The people who used the YASB services were also overcharged since we realize for one to apply for the visa or seek employment in other countries you only need $4000 to complete the process and receive your visa to enable you to go to the Australian countries.

They also advise if anyone needs to migrate they should visit the department of home affairs since they will give you all the advice you want, and they will also tell you are the necessary requirements for you to apply and obtain a visa to migrate and also assist in getting employment for those people (Deason, Rajgopal and Waymire 2015). People were encouraged to use the Y-axis Melbourne since it was the authorized migration consultancy that will give all the latest and professional assistance on how to acquire the best visa and will manage all your process (Nash, Bouchard and Malm 2018).

People were given advice on how to know unregistered migration agents so as to help them not to be scammed  since they could mislead you or  give you incorrect benefits to take your money and to know one unregistered migration company is that their fee is extreme high , you are asked to pay cash and no receipts are provided ton you, the agent does not give you any contract or statement of services as we see in the article they were not given any, only a post office box  or mobile phone number is provided, and no migration agents registration number is advertised (Nash, Bouchard and Malm 2018). This was the advice given to all the Indian people so as to know whether that migration agency is legit or not and when searching for a migration agent use the link provided in the register of migration agents since unscrupulous people in business can copy the link and make it seem to be real (Nash, Bouchard and Malm 2018).

The people are advised to report any incidences of migration fraud that is happening illegally or as an unregistered migration agent through the reporting line since they will have more information or report to scam watch since is a website that is run by the consumer act, if you are scammed by persons of another country you can report it to the local police or the consumer protection authorities in the country you live in for investigation to undergo and let the culprit be arrested for his acts (Wilson 2017).

One should also ensure to check the sites are email sent to them if they are legit or not to know whether they are being scammed, or they want to steal their identity or money and the warning signs are emails sent from free webmail addresses such Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail account, unknown email senders and do not click them at all, when you receive unexpected emails requesting for your personal information’s or emails that do not use your name instead use ‘dear customer or clients. Those emails that offer you a job with proper payments and allowances you should think twice and lastly emails that will claim certain persons have been selected to resettle in other countries without more information on how this is possible (Harrison and Bukstein 2017). If you are so concerned about the web search, do a research on it and check if anyone has reported any issue (Wolinsky and Rubin 2014). 

Persons are also advised that only authorized department will help you get a visa and do not check on any advertisements and the visa will be offered to you if you meet all the necessary qualifications (Deason, Rajgopal and Waymire 2015). All visas application are charged, and one will be notified with the list showing the applicable fees and charges, and the payment is made at the time of applications and in case you not in the country you will use the service delivery partner, and you receive a receipt showing what has the money be paid for (Nash, Bouchard and Malm 2018). You should also ask for a confirmatory letter to see on the progress of your application and if the process is done online also ensure you receive a transaction reference number that may assist you to log in and also know what documents you require and submit them on time (Deason, Rajgopal and Waymire 2015). These companies only require your certified copies and not your original document to prevent identity fraud (Gottschalk 2016).

Investigations are still done, and anyone with information about Mr. Avniesh should contact the police officers, legal action will be done to him after we’ve completed our investigations and he will pay for his crimes and the inconveniences he caused to lots of citizens leaving in India who wanted to search for greener pastures in Australia (Arrawatia and Pande 2016). 

Another situation of via crime took place in 2016 where a Mr. chug received $43500 to facilitate an employer nomination and assist in applying for 457 visa and a well stable job, the client who reported this case explained how he received money from two of his allies to support their relatives in the visa application and support him to maintain his restaurant to run throughout the year (Wilson 2017). The office of migration agents says he committed this crime knowingly and he violated the integrity of Australia visa program and upheld the law, he was found guilty and barred for five years from doing the business (Harrison and Bukstein 2017).

Conclusion

Most people are suffering from different financial crimes in different ways and manners, like in the article above we see how they were violated in pretending that they were going to be assisted. It is the right of the migration and consumer protection act to ensure that every person is protected and can get the visas genuinely without being overcharged or scammed so as to get the visas they require. There should also be laws and rules to protect people, and necessary action should be done to prevent the spreading of visas frauds. 

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