Immigration department Official organised $500,000 visa scam
Filipino national Duane Burgos, son of immigration visa processor Alex Allan, with his girlfriend Laarni Osorio who are in detention.
FIFTY-seven illegal immigrants have disappeared and are on the run after paying a corrupt Brisbane immigration official more than half a million dollars in bribes for visas.
The case is the largest corruption scandal ever to hit the Immigration Department and has promoted a major overhaul of flawed visa approval processes.
Most of the missing foreigners are Vietnamese farmers who do not speak English but were granted visas as skilled workers such as accountants, while others are Filipino relatives or friends of the official.
They either paid bribes to a Vietnamese middleman, or personally knew the corrupt immigration officer, Filipino-born Alex Escala Allan, 52, from Doolandella, in Brisbane’s southwest.
Allan was sentenced in the District Court in Brisbane on Tuesday to eight months’ jail for secretly receiving $563,290 in bribes between May 2013 and April last year.
Immigration has so far tracked down only two of 59 people to whom he corruptly granted visas. Those two were Allan’s 28-year-old son Duane Burgos, who has been working at the Justice and Attorney-General department in Brisbane, and his Filipino girlfriend Laarni Osorio. Both are awaiting deportation.
Filipino national Duane Burgos, son of corrupt immigration visa processor Alex Allan, and girlfriend Laarni Osorio.
Allan, who processed visas at the immigration office in Brisbane’s CBD, took wads of cash from Vietnamese farmer Minh Huy Lam either in meetings at Allan’s home, at Lam’s house in Regents Park or at The Coffee Club in Sunnybank. Lam is awaiting trial.
Allan was easily able to unlawfully grant the visas by abusing a “manager level” computer system log-on given to him during a temporary promotion to “acting manager”, according to the prosecution statement of facts. He allocated the visa applications to himself, then green-lighted them.
The Courier-Mail has been told Immigration Department processes were so loose that officials could manage a visa application in its entirety. That has been changed so different staff must approve elements.
Solicitor Daniel Hannay, for Allan, said Allan was pressured into issuing the visas, and could not stop once the scam began because he was under threat of being reported to authorities.
HOW THE SCAM CAME UNSTUCK
AN EAGLE-EYED but lowly ranked immigration inspector at Brisbane Airport brought down a sophisticated $500,000 visa scam run by an immigration department insider.
The inspector spotted two Vietnamese travellers lined up at Customs “acting nervously” and became suspicious when they did not speak a word of English.
It was odd because the skilled migrant visas they were holding were only for workers with fluent English.
Their documents stated they were coming to Brisbane to work, one as a “management accountant” and the other a “construction project manager”.
When questioned in Vietnamese the men admitted they were “farmers”, and when she checked the immigration computer system, the officer saw their file was “corrupted” and would not open.
Immigration Department visa processor Alex Allan was the officer who had approved the visas. When queried he played dumb. The two men were turned back at the border, and the probe into Allan began.
Worryingly Allan and alleged co-offender Minh Huy Lam had evaded detection for 11 months. The pair had known each other for a decade but it was not until July 2013 that Lam convinced Allan to help with a visa during a dinner at a Korean barbecue restaurant in Brisbane.
Allan began, in June 2013, by giving 17 of his Filipino family members, including his teenage daughter Cheyenne, and 28-year-old son, and friends, general skilled migration visas.
By December 2013 he was doing the same for 42 Vietnamese farmers. He was paid up to $15,000 in cash by Lam for each visa.
He was able to hide his crimes because the online visa applications looked correct, but the documents were not on the file and were replaced with a “corrupted PDF” – which other staff would dismiss as a computer error.
District Court Judge David G Searles.
Allan told psychologist Nick Smith that Lam threatened he would report Allan to authorities if he did not keep approving visas.
In sentencing him on Tuesday to eight months’ jail, Justice David Searles told Allan: “You were caught in a web of intrigue from which you were unable to escape.”
Allan’s barrister Angus Edwards told the court that Allan’s son was in detention with his girlfriend and his 17-year-old daughter would be deported once she turned 18.
Justice Searles told Allan it was a tragedy he would be separated from his children, who he had helped by bringing them to Australia illegally two years ago.
Prosecution facts state that “the whereabouts of the … 42 visa applicants is unknown to the Australian Federal Police, however it is understood that the Border Protection Force are making inquiries”.
It also states “the whereabouts of the… 17 (family and friend) visa applicants is unknown to the AFP, however it is understood that the Border Protection Force are making inquiries”.
Allan, who earned $61,582 in his job with immigration, has been working as a garbage truck driver for Veolia since he was charged, and has repaid $421,096 of the bribes to the government.
Prosecutor David Henschell told the court that Allan’s corruption “struck at the heart of Australia’s immigration and border protection system”.
It is the biggest corruption scandal to hit the immigration department since 2003 when $10,000 in bribes were paid to Sydney man Murray Duncan Bruce by two Korean middle-men. Bruce unlawfully granted or extended 50 visas while he was working in the immigration department.
Lam, 37, from Regents Park, has not entered a plea. He is due in Brisbane Magistrates Court on November 26 ahead of a committal proceeding.
An immigration department spokesman said “processes and systems have been strengthened to prevent this fraud from reoccurring”.
Source:
http://m.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/immigration-department-insider-organised-500000-visa-scam/story-fntwpug1-1227599526744