Hiring professional exam sitters to help them pass the English test have helped several take advantage of Australia’s slow immigration and appeals process to remain in Australia for up to 5 years.

Details of the racket were revealed in a series of decisions by Australia’s Migration Review Tribunal, according to a report in the Courier Mail. It states that two dozen foreigners have been caught hiring professional exam sitters to help get them Australian residency, in a lucrative visa racket and 17 more have been found to have changed their scores to turn a fail into a pass.

Modest/Competent use of the English language is a minimum requirement for many visas to Australia.

According to the Courier Mail, the migrants were nabbed when photos taken of the professional exam sitters who took the English test didn’t match the passport photos of the cheaters.

“Industry sources say this is just the tip of the iceberg. Nearly all the cheaters hired the stand-ins in their home countries of India and Sri Lanka, where cameras and fingerprint scanners have been installed in a bid to halt the massive racket. A crackdown by Indian police in 2009, which led to the arrest of the kingpin of the scam, has failed to stop it,” notes the report.

It is probable that these fraudsters are doing this just to get into Australia and then take advantage of the slow immigration and appeals process to live and work in Australia for many years until they have exhausted all legal appeals.

The Courier Mail reports the case of a Chinese woman Yang Guo who allegedly cheated in her exam in June 2009 but was allowed to stay in Australia until the tribunal decided her matter five years later, in August this year.

Nearly all the cheaters refused to admit their guilt and came up with creative reasons why their photos didn’t match.

Ms Guo claimed her weight had ballooned after she sat the exam and she was wearing heavy make-up in the photo.

Reports in Indian newspapers say cheaters pay up to $2000 to pass the International English Language Testing System test by having “sitters” superimpose their photos on candidates’ passports.

In 2009 a Perth man was jailed for taking $32,000 from Indian students who cheated their English tests.

Nearly all the cheaters caught in recent months arrived in Australia on student visas many years ago and were trying to become permanent residents.