Article content continued

Some of Wang’s clients, however, are girding for a fight. The Immigration and Refugee Board has so far issued exclusion orders against 43 permanent residents, effectively banning them from Canada for five years, but many are appealing on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, insisting they had no knowledge of Wang’s deception and were victims themselves.

Officials with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada were not able to say if they had revoked the citizenship of any of Wang’s clients because they do not track the outcomes of cases related to a large-scale investigation.

You’re paying someone for a service, you expect them to do it properly and do it legitimately

A B.C. court heard last year that Wang and his associates at New Can Consultants had altered clients’ passports to make it appear they had spent the requisite number of days in Canada to obtain citizenship or permanent residency when, in fact, they had not.

They achieved this by sending passports to associates in China where fake exit and entry stamps were added. They also used real Canadian addresses — even Wang’s home address in Richmond, B.C. — on clients’ application forms to further the impression they were living in Canada.

In some instances, they created fake letters of employment for clients, using the names of one of Wang’s many companies that seemingly existed for no other reason than to assist with the con.

Wang, who made at least $10 million, was sentenced in October 2015 to seven years in prison and fined more than $900,000, one of the most severe penalties handed down for this type of crime. Three of his associates are due for sentencing in January. Six more individuals have cases before the courts.