WATERLOO — Sarbjeet Singh landed in Canada in August 2012, telling the airport border agent he would be studying for his master's degree in engineering at the University of Waterloo the following month.

To back up his story, he had a government-issued student visa, and an acceptance letter into one of Canada's most sought after engineering graduate programs.

The border agent stamped his paperwork, and waved him through.

On the surface, there's nothing remarkable about a young man from India being one of the more than 5,800 international students who come from abroad to study at Waterloo every semester.

There was only one problem. The University of Waterloo had never heard of him.

Instead, the Canada Border Services Agency allege Singh was part of a sophisticated immigration fraud used to gain illegal entry into Canada.

Investigators say Singh had no intention of attending the university, and his behaviour once he arrived was not that of someone planning to study here, according to court records.

His Waterloo acceptance letter, used to gain a student visa and eventually a work visa, was fake.

Singh was one of 15 people caught in a recent probe by the Canada Border Services Agency, all using fake acceptance letters from the University of Waterloo's engineering program.

He was convicted in April under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and is awaiting sentencing. As a foreign national, he could face deportation.

Student visa fraud represents a very small portion of the total number of study permits granted each year to international students. But it appears to be a growing problem.

In 2015, out of the 219,000 study permits granted by Canada, 1,064 were refused due to "misrepresentation," according to statistics provided by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

In 2016, 1,639 students visas were found to be based on bogus documents — out of 265,000 study permits granted.

Last year, 2,779 study permits were deemed fraudulent, of the 317,000 granted by Canadian consulates around the world.

In the first six months of 2018, another 1,195 student visas were refused due to misrepresentation.

Investigators say there's a cottage industry producing fraudulent university documents in some foreign countries — and they're used with alarming regularity to gain entry in Canada through the student visa system.

In Singh's case, his application was among 65 student visa applications received by the Canadian consulate in Chandigarh, India, that contained bogus documents.

He told investigators his father paid $38,000 to "consultants" to get him the student visa.

Singh, who told the court he was born in 1991 and has a high school education, managed to fool Canadian officials for years — until he was caught during an investigation into a larger network of Indian men who gained entry using fake University of Waterloo acceptance letters, according to court documents.

He arrived in Canada through Edmonton International Airport on August 4, 2012. By that November, he'd applied to change his study permit into a work permit, claiming he had a job offer from a company called Cheema Janitorial Services Ltd. in Edmonton. It was granted.

In January 2014, Singh applied for an extension of his work permit, and received it. Since arriving, he's worked in Alberta. There's no evidence he's ever been to Waterloo Region.

It wasn't until the CBSA caught another man, Harinder Singh, when he tried to enter the country with a fake Indian passport in January 2016 that they were led to Sarbjeet Singh.

Like Singh, Harinder had also obtained a student visa using a fraudulent University of Waterloo acceptance letter, claiming he'd been admitted into the same master's program in engineering.

The CBSA investigator, James Whittaker, contacted the visa office in Chandigarh, India, and asked for a list of all Canadian study permits issued between 2011 and 2013 to people who had claimed acceptance into the masters program in engineering at the University of Waterloo.

Whittaker was given 17 names and then contacted Jeanette Nugent, the associate director of admissions at Waterloo. She confirmed only two of those names were actually registered at the university.

The border agency tracked Harinder to an apartment in Edmonton, where he was living with three other men — all of whom had entered Canada with fake University of Waterloo engineering letters. Sarbjeet Singh was one of them.

The University of Waterloo, meanwhile, says it's concerned by the use of its name by those who are trying to exploit the country's immigration system.

"It's unfortunate that anyone would use our well-earned reputation for this kind of thing," said Matthew Grant, director of media relations for the university.

Waterloo is contacted by border officials investigating similar cases about two or three times a year, he said.

"We've worked very hard to achieve the reputation that we have.

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"Our students work very hard to get into the University of Waterloo and the earn their degrees.

"Anything that takes away from that, it's not acceptable.

"We're not surprised that someone might target the University of Waterloo, only because we have a really good reputation ... but for those who continue to do this, we'd simply ask them to stop."

Singh, meanwhile, is still in Alberta, awaiting the outcome of his sentencing. He declined to comment on his case when reached by phone.

"That would not be good for me," he said.

His LinkedIn page claims he's a certified engineer technologist, but doesn't say where in Canada he obtained that training. Under education, it lists "Professional Engineers Ontario Association" but says his application is under review.

When investigators searched Singh's apartment, they found a script with English answers to questions such as "Which university are you going to?" "What program are you going for?" and "Who is paying your fees?"

In court, Singh pleaded ignorance to the whole scheme, saying his father had applied to the university for him. He claimed he had no idea what he was signing when the paperwork was sent in.

He said he didn't know his acceptance letter wasn't real until he went to the university and was told he wasn't registered.

The judge found it odd he never bothered to tell his parents he was turned away from the university they'd supposedly paid tens of thousands of dollars for him to attend.

"I wasn't able to tell my parents because I didn't want them to become burdened by this and more worried," he told the court.

The judge also took issue with Singh's behaviour as a supposed UW student. He made no effort to contact the university, learn about his courses or the books that would be required.

And he apparently had no concerns about his language barrier, despite enrolling in a graduate program in a foreign country.

"It is simply unreasonable to believe that someone would come to a strange country with the intention to study in a language which is not his first language and make so few preparations," provincial court judge E.A. Johnson said, in his decision.

"Overall this vagueness suggests a desire to distance himself from the circumstances, to blame others and to avoid taking responsibility by pleading ignorance."

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada says it takes immigration fraud very seriously — and says anyone who tries to defraud the system can be deported and forbidden from re-entering Canada for at least five years.

It also monitors the tens of thousands of legitimate foreign students who come to study in Canada each year, requiring that they remain enrolled and "make reasonable and timely progress toward completing their program."

"This regulation ensures that study permit holders are genuine students," it says.

gmercer@therecord.com

Twitter: @MercerRecord