A CARTEL of migration agents linked to organised crime is running Melbourne's booming blackmarket in fake foreign student paperwork, federal investigators say.

The 10 registered migration agents employ a team of seven unregistered "facilitators" to sell bogus education and work experience documents to students. The students use them to apply for permanent residency.

The rort is called the "template scam".

The migration agents buy letterheads and blank certificates from crooked trade schools and workplaces for $1000 each, then facilitators fill them out and sell them to students for $5000 to $15,000.

An investigation by the Immigration Department and federal police is under way. An immigration spokesman said the size and complexity was "without precedent".

A federal source said the facilitators did the "dirty work". "If this was the drug trade, you would call them mules," the source said.

Investigators say 2500 international students have used fake documents in Melbourne this year. The Age has learnt that up to 5000 visas may be cancelled by the Immigration Department within six months because they were granted with illegal paperwork. The visa holders would be deported or detained.

Investigators believe a Chinese-born businessman active in template scams also uses an identity crime racket to sell students fake passports and birth certificates, manufacturing new identities for six-figure amounts and earning $1.5 million a year.

A report to the Migration Institute of Australia, the industry's peak body, this year warned of "sophisticated photo-morphing" techniques to make fake documents.

The institute's chief executive, Maurene Horder, speaking from India, said migration fraud was damaging Australia's reputation in international education, worth $15 billion a year to the economy. She said there were possibly many more people entering Australia illegally through student scams than people smuggling.

The template scam paperwork gives students passes in trade school courses and certifies 900 hours work in a course-related job. Investigators have identified 40 allegedly corrupt employers, all restaurants and printing workshops. The Age has obtained successfully used fake documents from a rooming house in the northern suburbs posing as a print workshop claiming students worked as "very competant" graphic pre-press tradesmen who would be "valuable, skilled worker(s)" in "the Australian labor workforce".

Some restaurants claiming to have employed hundreds of cookery students were found to be small takeaway shops with few real customers.

Two weeks ago investigators seized a USB stick — found in the pocket of jeans in a laundry basket in a suburban house — that contained 800 fake work references.

A 24-year-old Chinese-born woman, Xiaoyi "Kelly" Huang, of Carnegie, was charged last week with migration fraud offences, including possessing 75 blank templates.

She was released with strict bail conditions but was permitted to communicate with her "business partner", Qi "Gary" Zhou. Mr Zhou's city office was raided late last year but he was not charged.

The raid uncovered a "treasure trove", a source said, including 16 boxes of papers allegedly linking Hong Yun(鴻運國際), Mr Zhou's former company, with suspect businesses, including a restaurant and a CBD trades school recently closed down by the Government after failing an audit.

粗略解釋一下（聲明：不是正經翻譯……）

由10名注冊移民代理和7名未注冊顧問組成的詐騙集團聯手組織了墨爾本“繁榮”的假學生材料黑市。他們向想要申請PR的學生出售偽造的畢業證書、成績單、工作經驗，甚至身份證件（護照、出生公證等）。

這些移民代理買通了一些TAFE學院、單位，以每份$1,000的價格搞到了抬頭信紙，空白證書。顧問們填寫后再以每份$5,000到$15,000出售給學生。

移民部和聯邦警察還在調查此案，移民局的發言人稱，該案的規模和復雜度是史無前例的。

調查人員稱今年墨爾本有2500國際學生使用了假材料。Age報獲悉移民部在六個月內可能取消多達5000個涉嫌使用非法材料的簽證。簽證持有人將被驅逐出境或拘押。

調查人員確信在這一詐騙活動中活躍的一個中國生商人還向學生出售假護照、出生公證，生產了六位數的新身份，一年賺取一百五十萬。

略...

調查人員已發現40個雇主涉嫌為TAFE學生900小時工作經驗造假，全部都是參觀或印刷工坊。一些餐館聲稱雇傭了數百名廚師學徒，但事實上只是少有人光顧的小外賣店。

兩周前，調查人員還發現了一個USB存儲器，里面包含了800份假工作經驗。

Kelly，黃Xiaoyi，女，24歲，中國出生，上周被以移民欺詐罪和持有75張空白模板被起訴。她目前正受嚴格的保釋限制，但依然可以和合伙人Gary(周Qi)交流。

周在市中心(Little Collin St)的辦公室去年底曾被搜捕，但當時他未被控訴。

消息稱，那次搜捕中發現了“寶藏”，包括16箱涉及鴻運國際的材料。鴻運是周的公司之一，還有一家餐館，及位于墨爾本CBD因未通過審計而于近期被關閉的一家TAFE學院。

此墨爾本中介涉嫌無牌代理移民，造假畢業證、假工作經驗、假證件，侵吞代繳學費，并曾在墨爾本當地多家華文報紙上刊登虛假廣告。

>>進入論壇 警鐘長鳴:墨爾本一華人中介被捕 近5000畢業生PR恐被取消

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