For the first time in Alberta, a local company has been convicted in the human trafficking and smuggling of skilled workers from Europe.

Kihew Energy Services Ltd. (Kihew) entered a guilty plea to Section 117 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (Organizing Entry into Canada) in Provincial Court in Edmonton on Tuesday.

Police say Kihew placed ads in a Polish newspaper and on a website to recruit European welders and machinists and that 60 foreign workers arrived in Alberta to fill the job requests. The first group arrived in December 2005.

The RCMP Immigration Unit in Calgary investigated and found that an arrangement was made between Kihew and an employee at Lakeland College.

The college employee sent letters to Canada Immigration and Citizenship confirming the foreign workers as students for training in welding and English as a Second Language (ESL) at the school.

Police say that a few of the foreign workers attended some of the ESL classes but none of them attended the college for technical welding classes as was indicated on the student visas.

The foreign workers were contracted out by Kihew to several northern Alberta businesses which were then charged a high hourly rate for the services of each foreign worker.

Kihew then paid the foreign workers a substantially lower rate of pay.

Investigators believe that Kihew made about $1 million in profits through 2006 by sub-contracting the foreign workers.

Charges against the Directors of Kihew, Calvin Steinhauer and John Lipinski and against Lipinski’s wife Angela were withdrawn.

Kihew received a $215,000 fine which will be paid to Lakeland College.

Investigators say that the college was unknowingly utilized by Kihew in the commission of the offense.