ex_exile

Quote:
NAB slammed in $22.7m visa fraud

The National Australia Bank has come under criticism from a Federal Court judge over its handling of a $22.7 million visa fraud case, reports The Australian Financial Review.
Judge Mark Weinberg told NAB's counsel Robert Strong in court on Monday that the bank should have alerted the Australian Federal Police to the matter of $22.7 million being illegally withdrawn by an employee to enable 227 Indian nationals to obtain residency visas.

<Snip>

Akshay Batra, a business banking centre manager in suburban Melbourne who also was a registered migration agent, worked with a West Footscray-based mortgage broker Rajesh Narad to conduct the scam.

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/...B?OpenDocument

A very innteresting read. What will happen to the 227 fraudulently granted visa holders and their families I wonder. NAB will have to inform AFP and DIAC of who they are if they want to recover any of the funds.

naveenbabuk

I have seen few migrants abusing the A$100,000 investment option. There are few locals who invested A$100,000 on behalf of migrants and charged around A$20,000 plus the bank interest on the A$100,000 from them migrants.

George Lombard

Dear XX,

Thanks for the link. It's intriguing that one person at the centre of the scam seems to be an education agent, not a migration agent as reported. The other person seems to be an unregistered agent operating onshore - if so they might both be locked up for a considerable period. See here for details: http://afr.com/home/viewer.aspx?EDP:.../news/feed.xml

However it's worth noting that the 227 visa holders - if faced with cancellation as suggested by the Minister's spokeswoman today - would have excellent prospects of success if adequately represented and I would advise them all to immediately get good independent advice. I have already had a couple of enquiries.

Cheers,

George Lombard

Innocent_Indian

Hi All,

Please do not write anything wrong about victims.Please if you could not understand about the victims that means you are supporting one side of the story.

victims in this scam do not know anything about the scam, please note it.
Imagine we are in need of home loan and went to an financial broker who has good relationship with banks. We often do right??
so we trust on the company to get loan approved legally and do the things ...but we will trust him 100percent because the company is doing business legally with registered name etc.

Once your loan is approved and you bought your home ,also you are paying interest promptly to the bank. one bad morning if you read in the news paper that which you have taken service from the financial company done some illegal thing to approve loan for his clients, how do you feel???

In this scenario, we did not do anything except trusting a legal financial company.
Same situation to the victims here.
Understand guys...
People are in mental distress now..everyone got their residencies and paying money promptly to the bank and will return 100k after maturity of the bond.

So where is fraud here...if third party does the illegal thing..how come it should affect the clients..??

My sincere request...please do not kill persons who are half dead now with the incident.
If you can please help with legal advice.
Let us help the each other.

Thank you,
Innocent_Indian

point8

What about $20,000 everyone paid? So if any one had paid 20K to anyone to get a loan, isn't that wrong doing? And how about the receiving end - 20k x 227, thats a lot of money. Bank will try to stuff it under the carpet, other wise they MAY not get their money back. Next step will be to make all who received the load say they took the loan and then tell the treasury to give that money back to the bank. That way bank come out clean. Rest will have to wait and see. This might just one case as noted earlier, there might be a lot of people who did this. Big heads, spin docs. If they don't broom it under the carpet, this will open a pandooran box.

George Lombard

As mentioned above, anyone who is affected by this should be getting independent advice about their migration status as soon as possible. Given the money involved, this isn't going to be swept under any carpet imho. We have already written to the NAB about certain issues however I don't know if I will be able to report back to an open forum.

Cheers,

George Lombard

Innocent_Indian

Hi All,

George,Could you please give some suggestions to the victims???
As many people thinking that giving 20,000 dollars to get loan is wrong doing,but believe me if you go to financial broker they charge to process your loan right.
We have to pay for everything in this world to be being served. Like paying to doctor,lawyer or to a plumber. Victims have paid for the service. Not to any person alone but to a person who is representing the financial company.
There is no wrong doing from victim side or they dont know anything about how they do??

Infact, company wont reveal those information to clients.
The only mistake done by victims is going to wrong company for loan. But it is natural...no one will be having ability to find that.

Please everyone if you have any suggestions or any advice please give reply.
227 people are skilled people, done their Masters degree in Information Technology.
In that, most people are working in Information Technolgy Sectors.

Advance thanks to people all for their advices and suggestions.

Thank you,
Innocent Indian

Innocent_Indian

HI George,

Some of my friends are urgently need advice.Could you please give us appointment regarding this.
If you believe them and want to help them out from this issue , we will call you on monday for appointment.

Thank you,
II

Pollyana

As George has said above, there are probably issues involved in this which should not be aired on an open forum which anyone can access.
His own company has obviously already been working on cases as part of this, and I suggest that if you and you friends are looking for assistance maybe you should contact his office on Monday.
Contact details for his company are in his signature.

Innocent_Indian

Hi Pollyana,

Thanks alot for your word.definetely i will contact him monday morning.
Thanks alot for your concern regarding this.
Definetely in future..we will be very cautious in every thing we do.
This time of my and all of our's life are very hard. Just like sunami hit our heart and washed away all our dreams on Aussie Land.
We worked hard in every way...and being legal always,still we are going through this hard time.
Anyway everyone , thanks alot for your words.
One thing is true we are innocent, we dont know what happenned at background but we are going through very hard time. sleepless nights, effecting our productivity at office, we are disturbed in every manner.

Thank you,
II

point8

Trying to understand this:

1) Bank gives A$100000 loan to a non-resident. On what basis?
2) Take loan from an Australian bank and put this in Australian tresuary as bond. Does this count as "capital investment" ?

Banking system - How safe are we?

Innocent_Indian

Hi point8,

1) Secured loan, they have said that they kept million dollar property to take the loan. It doesnt matter if you are non resident. Bank needs security of the Australian Resident.

2) At the age of 25, who finished their masters degree..just out of universtiy cannot have 100,000 as investment right?? they have to borrow from parents, is it not taking loan and investing in treasury??
If it is capital investment, why not taking loan from bank and repaying regularly is not a capital investment.

Please understand.

Thanks,
II

Jag Khairra

Any news about Akshay Batra and his associates? Akshay was recently registered as a Qualified Education Agent Counsellor (QEAC) with Australian Education International and is listed on their website. http://www.pieronline.org/qeac/?txtS...a-9292c876c0d8

The website, however, is quiet on this and has not made any announcements yet.

BadLuckIsMyFate

Mate,

Can you please advise on the updates after your meeting with John. I am from Brissy and one of the unfortunate guys to fall for this.... I have been working 7days/week for last 1.5yr to cover up my immigration costs, the 20k fee (which I had borrowed from family and friends) and the monthly bank interest for the loan. I still have a bit to pay off....

Now for all those who are putting us into fraud category, please tried to understand that this 227 people did not get together to fool the bank or DIMIA... We worked hard and got uni degrees which mind you cost a fortune considering we were full fee paying students. DIMIA wanted capital investment and its Indian equivalent was 3.5 million rupees which is a big amount for most of Indians coming here to study.... I looked around for loan options to the extent that my parents were ready to put up their house for sale (my education used up their entire life's savings) but it still didn't work out and then I get to hear of this option and being in such a stressful state without doing long term thinking just made a jump. I am not here to tell you my sob story but requesting everyone to understand our situation and how we all ended by falling for this scam!

We had no intention to cheat anybody and I believed until now that everything was done through a legal process (apart from the 20k fees) as we had given our payslips, passport and signed on NAB loan form, what could have given us a hit that it was wrong. Yes 20k fee, well who would give a fresh graduate with no assets a loan of 100k, so we thought it was justifiable. And we are not running away with the money, the money will go back to the bank at the end of 1yr. We also paid and are still paying the interest regularly so how are we culprits? I am not asking for sympathy but just a little bit of understanding on our situation before you decide to accuse us of any wrong doings....

George Lombard

Dear BLIMF, II, etc,

Please try to call my office on 02-97990085 to discuss this and FWIW I don't think you should be commenting like this on a public forum.

One question I will be asking you is how the interest from the statutory deposit was paid to you.

Cheers,

George Lombard