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Former clients of a B.C. consultant convicted of one of the biggest immigration scams in Canadian history insist they had no knowledge of his fraudulent activity, but the federal government says they are “far from being victims.”

The legal battle currently brewing in Federal Court could have huge implications for potentially hundreds of Chinese immigrants who had hired Xun “Sunny” Wang, an unlicensed immigration consultant, to obtain Canadian citizenship or permanent resident status.

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Wang, who operated New Can Consultants Ltd. and Wellong International Investments Ltd. out of offices in downtown Vancouver and Richmond, B.C., was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2015 and fined $900,000 after pleading guilty to multiple fraud-related charges. The scam involved making it appear as if his clients had spent the requisite number of days in Canada when, in fact, they had not.

To pull that off, clients’ passports were altered — typically by adding fake exit and entry stamps. To further the impression some of his clients were living in Canada, fake letters of employment or school admission letters were created.