A man who allegedly duped dozens of migrants into paying for non-existent working visas has been arrested by the Australian Federal Police.

Abel Prasad of SVC Legal Australia allegedly ripped off unsuspecting migrants, mostly international students, by promising jobs with one of his companies and then supplying bogus visas.

Most of Prasad's companies exist only in name and there are no jobs.

Police sources have told the ABC that both the NSW and Queensland Police as well as the Immigration Department are "very interested" in talking to Mr Prasad.

"We have been investigating him for some time," a police source said.

Prasad has been extradited to South Australia where he will face 23 charges relating to GST fraud.

These charges are not related to the alleged visa scams.

Prasad, who was living in Brisbane, denied any wrongdoing.

"I have never acted as a migration agent," he said.

"I acted as a sales rep to sell SVC Legal as a registered migration law firm."

Prasad said he had not scammed anyone.

"No no no no — that was my business partner, and our lawyers can help you out with any of that information," he said.

The lawyers Prasad said were acting for him denied that he is a client.

In a statement, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said his department had been working on the case with the Australian Federal Police, as well as police in NSW, South Australia and Queensland.

"Unfortunately there have been instances of people pretending to be migration agents and providing false or misleading information to take advantage of a person's desire to travel to Australia," he said.

"This calendar year, my department has sanctioned eight migration agents resulting in either a caution, suspension, cancellation or a barring decision on their registration.

"Additionally, my department has found breaches in regard to 93 complaints made against registered migration agents during the same period."

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'He destroyed my dreams'

According to the head of the Migrants Alliance, the peak body for migration agents, Mr Prasad has allegedly scammed at least 20 people.

"Abel Prasad is, quite frankly, a con man," Liana Allan said.

"He lies to people and pretends that he can get them a new life in a new country, in Australia."

Indian student Jaspal Marok said Prassad told him he would be a business consultant in his company Snappy Digital on a salary of $65,000.

"He told me you would be the manager of that division trying to negotiate with our Indian counterparts and organise stuff," he said.

Mr Marok handed over his life savings of $17,000 to Prasad to get a visa.

But not only was there no job, there was no visa either.

Mr Marok was informed by the Immigration Department that the visa he received from Prassad had been forged by Prasad's business.

"At that time, I was like oh my God, what has happened to me? I was so shocked. I can't describe it," Mr Marok said.

"He destroyed all my dreams."

Victim 'considered suicide' after being left penniless

Another victim, Chinese student Ashley Chen, allegedly paid Prasad $41,000 for a job and a visa.

Prasad allegedly told Mr Chen to pay "a business service fee" to one of his companies. In exchange he was promised a visa within 24 hours. No visa arrived.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 8 minutes 27 seconds 8 m Man arrested over alleged visa scam that left migrants penniless and suicidal

"When I started asking about where is my money and where is my visas he started to avoid that questions," Mr Chen said.

Then Prasad allegedly starting threatening Mr Chen and wanted more money.

Prasad allegedly told Mr Chen: "If you don't pay I have your address and I have all your information so you think about that."

The experienced has left Mr Chen penniless and suicidal.

"I was trying to suicide myself once by taking my knife. But I think of my Mum and Dad and think I couldn't do this. I was staying home for a week and I didn't do anything. Depressions. It was a hard time," Mr Chen told the ABC.

Ms Allan unwittingly helped Mr Prasad reel in more victims.

Prasad convinced her to support and promote his business SVC Legal Australia on the Migration Alliance website.

"Essentially what Abel wanted to do is he wanted to be able to ride off my reputation and have me to promote and bless everything he did and advise all our migration agents that he was a safe person to do business with," she said.

"Abel is very flamboyant and very convincing. I fell for it. I have egg on my face."