Police allege they have identified a fraudulent identity manufacturing operation in Sydney which had created thousands of fake identification cards, including licences, Medicare cards and credit cards.

The operation began when Australian Customs and Border Protection Service (ACBPS) officers detected 5000 NSW driver licence holograms after they arrived concealed in a package from China, according to a media release from the NSW Police.

Some of those cards had been used to commit fraud offences against financial institutions across Sydney. Police will also allege that false identification was used by one person to board a domestic flight.

Early yesterday (Wednesday 25 February 2015), officers executed search warrants at homes in Canley Vale, Rockdale and Lakemba. Four people have been arrested and a fraudulent identification manufacturing operation has been shut down following a joint-agency investigation by the Identity Security Strike Team. NSW Police Force Fraud and Cybercrime Squad Commander, Detective Superintendent Arthur Katsogiannis, said this was another successful multi-agency investigation into an organised criminal syndicate involved in what police would allege was a highly sophisticated operation into the high level manufacturing of fake identification cards and other documentation.

The Identity Security Strike Team (ISST) is a multi-jurisdictional initiative between the NSW Police Force, the Australian Federal Police (AFP), and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. It investigates high level, complex identity fraud and related security matters under both Commonwealth and State legislation.

Michael Jeremy (on the left in the picture) will be presenting two separate, full-day 10-point CPD blitzes in Perth on 13 March and 14 March 2015.   Here is what the super-guru of Australian immigration has to say:

"I really enjoy delivering training workshops as these OFFER a much more interactive and interesting learning environment.

I always learn new things and see things from different perspectives as a result of the broad range of experiences held in the workshop. It also gives PARTICIPANTS a greater ability to get to know each other and find out what their colleagues are interested in, specialise in and how to create networks in an often isolating industry.

The topics we'll be discussing in Perth:

•     The ever-changing General Skilled Migration, 'this is not an application' - Expression Of Interest (EOI). Not to be outdone, the states, territories and regions of Australia also have their own Skilled Occupation Lists, skill and English criteria and systems of invitation to the party. The Immigration Department also has interesting and growing cancellation powers over permanent visas.

•     Ministerial Intervention, which is an interesting, complex and explosive area of immigration in which to practice. Migration professionals must always remember that this is about the 'Minister' NOT the 'Department'.

•     The notorious 457 Visa is, in my opinion, one of the most complicated programs within skilled migration. It really is about Australian employers and their ability to abide by the sponsorship obligations. This is a really interesting area of Immigration law in which to practice.

•     ENS (Employer Nomination Scheme). This is widely misunderstood to be 'permanent sponsorship'. It's nothing of the sort. We'll go through some interesting aspects of the regs and how to best advise clients on pathways and streams.

•     The Health Criteria is my favourite seminar. The Health Crtieria apply to every person who seeks entry to Australia and to remain in Australia, it's the standards of evidence that differ across individuals and how those standards of evidence are best determined. In this seminar we'll look at HIV, Ebola and medical conditions such as Schizophrenia. We'll also discuss how best to manage an application for a health waiver.

I invite all attendants to come armed with questions and issues to raise within the group."

DIBP has warned of ‘…a wave of scam calls currently taking place’ demanding immediate payment from visa holders for ‘errors’ in their documentation.

Scammers, impersonating immigration officials are making phone calls to visa holders and demanding the payment of ‘fines’ to fix 'errors' in their personal information, according to a recent post by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP).

The scammers apparently insist on immediate payment for ‘an alleged error committed by the intended victim” notes a DIBP spokesperson. Somehow, the scammer would authenticate their ‘authority’ by referring to the individuals personal details including date of birth and passport number and warn of errors in their personal information/circumstances like date of birth and require an immediate payment to fix those errors for a fee. The threat is that if payment is not made, the visa holder would be deported.

With email scams, the email address uses a government address but ends in .pn. For example, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Apparently, the scam starts off with the scammers obtaining peoples personal details via fake job advertisements. This would be followed up with emails or phone-calls demanding money transfers through Western Union.

The migration skills list and the occupation ceilings sets the limits on the number of permanent visas granted each year under Australia’s skilled migration programme. However, many of the trades skills quotas are not being met. It is not clear if there is insufficient interest from applicants or if people are not bothering to apply due to the high English Language requirement.

Eight months of the financial year have passed and DIBPs recently updated statistics on occupation ceilings show that out of some 160,000 possible invitations that DIBP can issue in each programme year, only about 19,402 invitations have been sent as at 25 February 2015. The statistics are listed here: http://www.immi.gov.au/Work/Pages/SkillSelect/SkillSelect.aspx#tab-4 . You will have to click the Occupational Ceilings tab to view the data.

Occupational ceilings limit how many invitations to apply are issued by the Department of Immigration each year for general skilled migration for a particular occupation. Generally, applicants with an Expression of Interest in occupational groups which have reached their ceiling will not be invited to apply for a visa but however will remain in the EOI pool for two years from the date of submission, or until they are selected to apply when a fresh quota is issued.

Occupational ceilings do not apply to Employer Sponsored or Business Innovation and Investment visa subclasses and have now also been removed for State or Territory Nominated, visa subclasses. Effectively this means that states can nominate occupations for Skilled Nominated Subclass 190 and Skilled Regional Subclass 489 visas even if the ceiling has been reached.

Based on DIBPs current statistics, over 90 per cent of the jobs have barely hit 50 per cent of their quota. In fact, more than half the jobs on the list that numbers 75 occupations, have barely hit 3 per cent of their quota.