ANOTHER FILIPINO SCAM
This is what the loophole-riddled Temporary Foreign Workers’ Programme leads to. Notice in this Toronto Star (May 5, 2015) article that scamster Imelda “Mel” (how delightfully informal) Fronda Saluma, now under arrest, bilked more than $2.3-million from 600 or more fellow Filipinos. Among the phony jobs she pledged to secure for them were “jobs at McDonald’s, Holiday Inn, Pizza Hut and Tim Hortons.”
With all the caterwauling about “racism” surrounding any criticism of Canada’s lax immigration programmes, note the Fronda Saluma, I mean “Mel”‘s victims were her own Filipino people. She even scoured other nations for gullible Filipinos who would pay her for phony “services. ” TheToronto Star reports: “People living in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and the United Kingdom were all allegedly drawn in, said Det. Erwin Mendoza. Some were already living in Canada and were allegedly promised visa extensions or permanent residency.”
According to the Toronto Star, ” They came from all around the world and shared the same dream: securing a job in Canada, becoming a permanent resident and ultimately reuniting with their families.
The $5,000 price tag was hefty: $1,500 for the job match, $2,000 for an employment contract and a positive government labour market opinion, and a final installment of $1,500 when the work visa was issued. Word of mouth in the close-knit Filipino community guided people to Imelda “Mel” Fronda Saluma, who was trusted because she was Filipino like them.
Police allege hundreds were then stranded around the world without papers or money. Others were rejected by Immigration Canada and prohibited from reapplying for two years. On Tuesday, Toronto police accused Saluma, 46, of being behind a massive scam that bilked more than $2.3 million from 600 prospective Filipino immigrants. The mother of four was charged in February and had more fraud-related offences added last week. She now faces 73 charges involving allegedly selling forged employment documents to foreigners so they could apply to come to Canada as temporary foreign workers. …
.Saluma ran GoWest Jobs International on Finch Ave. W., just east of Keele St. with a sole staffer: Rose Fabe Walters, a.k.a. Rosemarie Walters. According to one victim’s allegations, clients were convinced of GoWest’s legitimacy by the happy smiles they saw on Facebook of Filipino workers the agency claimed to have brought to Canada in 2012 to pick green peppers on a Cambridge farm.
Agnes Aquino said she is out $24,500, money she claimed she paid Saluma and Walters to bring her brother and other relatives to Canada in August 2012. ‘Even though we always had to pay in cash, we didn’t suspect anything. We all came from the Philippines. We had this blind faith and trusted they also wanted to help others to come here,’ said Aquino, who came to Canada in 2001 as a live-in caregiver.’I was trying to help my relatives. They remitted me the money and I paid Rose (Walters). My relatives are angry at me and blame it on me. I don’t trust anyone anymore, even when I really want to help.’
Angry clients flocked to an online forum where recruiters who had never met each other began to realize the sheer size of the alleged scam. Aquino says she and nine other agents took their client lists and paperwork to Toronto Police last October.
The current GoWest investigation goes back only to July 1, 2012. Police believe Saluma may have been operating under a different corporate name before that date, but haven’t received any complaints from that time period. People living in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and the United Kingdom were all allegedly drawn in, said Det. Erwin Mendoza. Some were already living in Canada and were allegedly promised visa extensions or permanent residency. … Rose Grey, a singer from Windsor who says she recruited clients for Saluma from her home province of Nueva Ecija, Philippines, says four of the approximately 100 people she assisted have actually made it into Canada. Grey alleges Saluma provided her with documents promising immigrants jobs at McDonald’s, Holiday Inn, Pizza Hut and Tim Hortons, and paid her a $150 commission per person.
‘She convinced me and I convinced my people,’ she said. Grey, who complained to police and has not been charged, says she never saw any original documents, only passed along photocopies or scanned attachments by email. ‘She would have an LMO (labour market opinion) for 50 people and then sell it to 300 or 500 people,” she alleged. “When we were all in the (police) precinct, we all had the same documents.”