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.”
As a dodge to let foreigners who knowingly pay smugglers or scamsters to help them sneak into Canada, going back to Liberal Immigration Minister Elinor “I will not be a gatekeeper — Remember the St. Louis” Caplan (during the invasion of sex rusty boats from China full of illegals) the party line is that the illegals are somehow more victims than criminals, but the REAL villains are the people smugglers. On paper, the government has some tough rules in place” to wit, “The
Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) prohibits knowingly organizing the coming into Canada of one or more persons by means of abduction, fraud, deception, or use or threat of force or coercion (
section 118). The offence is punishable by a maximum penalty of life imprisonment and a fine of up to $1 million. The offence found in the IRPA is limited to transnational cases where a person is brought into Canada from somewhere else. The term “organize” includes recruitment, transportation, and after entry into Canada, receipt and harbouring.
Section 117 Organizing entry into Canada prohibits providing advice and representation for a fee to all stages of an application or proceeding.”
Let’s hope the prosecution demands a long jail tern for Saluma and a $1-million fine. In reality, despite the huffing and puffing,. most smugglers get off very lightly.
Finally, for years, the Canada First Immigration Reform Committee has urged that the Chinese cannibal, Vincent Wei Guang Li, who, in 2008. murdered and began to eat body parts of Tim McLean, be investigated for possible immigration fraud. Remember, he gained entry to Canada on the strength of a job offer in computer programming near Vancouver. He never appears to have worked there. Instead, his sterling contribution to the Canadian economy were occasional jobs swinging a mop in a Winnipeg church, taking our garbage for an Edmonton fast food joint and delivering newspapers for the Edmonton Sun. His English ability seemed dodgy. The Canadian taxpayers have spent millions of dollars providing solicitous care for the cannibal who, according to the CBC (May 9, 2015) ” was given permission this week to move into a group home in the city with round-the-clock staff and a curfew.” If Li entered the country fraudulently, if his job offer was a fraud, he should be deported and stripped of his citizenship and become China’s problem.
Similarly with Imelda Saluma, we’d like to know her citizenship status. If she is not a citizen and is convicted, she should be deported. If she is a citizen, how she became one should be closely scrutinized and if there were, well a few, perhaps many, lies, that citizenship should be revoked and she should be deported.
Paul Fromm
Director
CANADA FIRST IMMIGRATION REFORM COMMITTEE
