Australian Immigration Daily News

From 2006 to 2009, Qi Zhou was the principal, owner and proprietor of Hong Yun International Pty Ltd (‘HYI’). HYI was a business that was advertised and promoted as a professional migration, legal and financial services agency, offering overseas students from China, a range of visa options that would enable them to get other temporary visas or permanent residency to stay in Australia.

Between 2008 and 2009, the Australian Federal Police and the Commonwealth Department of Immigration and Citizenship undertook a joint investigation. They concluded that a number of people were engaged in a series of ‘migration fraud’ offences operating primarily under HYI.

Activities included acting as Registered Migration Agents and collecting fees from vulnerable clients. There was also a large scale production of false documents, and the submission of these to government agencies.  Then there was the creation of contrived marriages and de facto relationships, all to defaud the DIBP and for Australian immigration purposes.

From the Supreme Court of Victoria, Court of Appeal the following is stated:

"The Commonwealth charge concerned a multi-faceted scheme whereby the applicant, and others working for and with him, advised clients as to the means by which they might obtain an appropriate visa to remain in Australia, often with a view to seeking permanent residency, and then assisting those clients to obtain those visas by preparing and submitting false information and applications to Commonwealth government agencies and departments, in return for payment by those clients of substantial cash fees. The ultimate unlawful object of the enterprise was to obtain visas for HYI clients by dishonestly influencing Commonwealth public officials to grant or approve fraudulent applications. The creation, submission and verification of the false information and applications and false documents by the applicant and his co-conspirators, in a manner that gave the appearance that the clients satisfied the relevant eligibility criteria, formed the basis for the dishonest means by which the applicant and his co-conspirators sought to influence the decision to be made by the relevant Commonwealth public officials. The fraudulent migration activities of the applicant and HYI were intended to dishonestly manipulate the visa system through the submission of the false documents to which we have referred.

The State charge concerned a number of false document templates that the applicant had custody and control of which were to be used by him and other staff at HYI to create false university qualifications for clients in return for payment by them of a fee. These templates were not used to create false documents as part of the criminal enterprise the subject of the Commonwealth charge. They were used in a different, albeit fraudulent, manner.

The evidence put before the sentencing judge satisfied her Honour that the applicant was a principal of the scheme to perpetrate the migration fraud which we have just described. Further, the judge was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the applicant was the main instigator of the scheme, and the person who, above all, directed and controlled the operation of the scheme. Those findings were well open to her Honour, and no attack was made upon them in this application. Similarly, the evidence disclosed, and no issue was taken with the judge’s conclusion, that the applicant personally received substantial fees for the fraudulent services he provided.

The judge concluded that the facts in respect of both charges were very serious. No issue was taken by the applicant on the hearing of this application. Indeed, as the applicant’s counsel put it in argument before this Court, ‘This is serious offending’.

Notwithstanding the concessions made on behalf of the applicant as to the seriousness of the applicant’s offending, it was submitted to the judge that the sentence to be imposed should be moderated by reference to the applicant’s plea of guilty, the delay between the offending and the hearing of the plea, the applicant’s good prospects of rehabilitation (said to have been demonstrated by, amongst other things, the absence of further offending between 2009 and 2013), the applicant’s remorse, the applicant’s relatively insignificant previous criminal history, the applicant’s eventual co-operation with the authorities, the applicant’s undertaking to provide further assistance to the authorities in respect of co-conspirators, and circumstances of exceptional hardship brought about by reason of the applicant’s mother’s advanced age and ill health.

With the exception of prospects of rehabilitation, before this Court, the applicant maintained his reliance upon all of these mitigatory factors as showing that the sentence imposed by the judge was manifestly excessive. However, the applicant’s principal focus before us was on the issues of delay and exceptional hardship. The question of the applicant’s prospects of rehabilitation was largely abandoned by the applicant because of evidence that came to light following the sentencing of the applicant. It now appears that the judge was misled into sentencing the applicant on the basis that there was a lack of subsequent offending (which was said to demonstrate good prospects of rehabilitation). In fact, some three months after the applicant was sentenced by the judge, the applicant pleaded guilty to one charge of attempting to obtain property by deception. The offence to which the applicant pleaded guilty occurred during the period between 15 October 2010 and 22 November 2010. The offence related to the use of a credit card on 18 occasions, and involved the sum of $14,260."

Migration Alliance believes that the best way to stop unregistered practice is on the basis of 'prevention is better than cure'.  We made a submission to Senator Cash to exclude certain persons from being able to act for and on behalf of another individual or business last week.  Preventing unregistered agents from being able to lodge applications for others is already happening in NZ and Canada.    A copy of our submission to Senator Cash is here.