By Mimi Alphonsus
“You sell tea in Jaffna town, but my fiance has a restaurant in Canada,” a woman tells her boyfriend in an advertisement for emigration services. “I’m ending things.” Among youth in the North and East, emigrating has become a dream, but most end up with the nightmare of trying to recover their money from the many visa scammers that prey on their desperation.
Mr. Kandanraj (name changed) is a fisherman in Mannar, but for the past few years his family had high expectations of him emigrating to Canada. Last year his mother, two sisters, and sister-in-law pawned their jewellery to afford his travels. With a loan from his brother-in-law, Mr. Kandanraj paid Rs. 12.8 million to a local broker with the promise of a visit visa to Canada, where he planned to overstay. For a year, Mr. Kandanraj received neither his visa nor his money.
Dime a dozen: A social media post advertising visa services
Such visa scams are on the rise. In the past five years, the Special Crimes Investigation Bureau (SCIB) of Mannar, Mullaitivu, and Batticaloa districtshave been steadily filing more and more such cases. This year, the SCIB in the three districts filed 95 cases up to September. Scammers have defrauded the victims in the three districts of over Rs. 320m.
Since 2022, the SCIB only files cases above Rs. 1m, so many more lower-value cases are handled by the local police and not reflected in this data. Furthermore, these numbers only represent the reported cases.
None of the three victims the Sunday Times spoke to had filed a complaint with the police. In fact, Mr. Kandanraj said the police discouraged him, warning him that the case will take several years and the lawyers’ fees would be expensive. Instead, he resorted to threatening the agent and did manage to recover part of his money.
Travel bans have been issued on known scammers, and several court cases are ongoing, but police say that most cases are difficult to pursue. “People make cash payments to the scammers and don’t get a receipt,” said an officer attached to a Northern SCIB. “It makes it very difficult to take legal action.”
The scammers promise to arrange a trip to a Western country, often on a tourist visa, and sometimes even promise to help regularise their documents once there. The Sunday Times spoke to four such “visa consultants,” all of whom offer to arrange a tourist visa and jobs on the black market.
In many instances, the scammer is known to the victim, preying on the trust of an existing relationship.
Mr. Dilushan (name changed), for example, followed his uncle’s advice to pay a broker in Negombo and make his way to Canada via other cities. Mr. Dilushan, who hails from Jaffna, trusted his uncle on three different occasions, and spent over six months on the broker’s orders in Kathmandu, Mumbai, Dubai, Nairobi, and New Delhi before giving up. “My uncle is no longer answering my calls,” said Mr. Dilushan. “He betrayed me.” Mr. Dilushan spent over Rs. 6 million he borrowed and has now returned to work at a chicken processing factory.
Police sources said that in many cases, victims had pawned jewellery, mortgaged their land, and sold their vehicles to cover expenses.
The scammers, meanwhile, are enriching themselves.
Mr. Kandanraj described the offices of his agent in Colombo. “The office itself was small, there wasn’t a sign board or anything. But you should have seen the vehicles in his parking lot. There were Land Cruisers and Benzes, he had four phones for all his illegal activities and was clearly very rich and well connected.”
The scammers typically take their clients to a third country (like the UAE or India), sometimes with the support of an immigration contact who will let them pass through Katunayake airport. With no intention of actually getting their client past French or British immigration, the client’s stay in the third country creates the perfect conditions to blackmail relatives back home to keep sending money.
DIG Nihal Thalduwa said that in some cases people register a company both in the final destination in a Western country and in Dubai, planning to recruit people to Dubai, and then transfer their employment to the final destination as a pathway for migration.
“In this case they are actually trying to get the person to Canada, as an example,” Mr. Thalduwa said. “But, sometimes, the Canadian visa gets rejected and that person gets stuck in Dubai for several months.” He suggests asking about the emigration procedure when dealing with agents. “The agent should be able to explain every step of the procedure. Pick a government-registered agent and never pay upfront.”
But an official from Jaffna explained that the horror stories are unlikely to end. He explained that because many Tamils are living abroad, there is a strong desire to emigrate, either to be united with their family or for the money.
“Normally relatives abroad will send money every month to support their extended family in Sri Lanka,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “So these relatives calculate that it is better to do a one-time investment and bring over someone who can take over this burden.”
In a sense, the victims are the lucky ones. Many Sri Lankans desperate to emigrate don’t make it out alive. (Courtesy- The Sunday Times)
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