Close Reading

an Indian from vancouver told me she does not like Brampton... too many gangsters

How an airlines worker allegedly exploited Canada’s immigration laws to admit people from India\nThe 24-year-old former British Airways worker is estimated to have made over $5.1 million from the fraud scheme\n\nAuthor of the article:Jamie Casemore\nPublished Feb 28, 2024\n\nA former British Airways employee has allegedly fled to India after being arrested for allegedly helping Indian citizens get around immigration laws so they could claim asylum in Canada.\n\nAs initially reported in The Times of London on Tuesday, the employee who worked at Heathrow airport in London, U.K., is said to have enabled people without proper documentation to get on flights to Canada so that they could claim asylum upon entering the country. He allegedly charged £25,000 per person or about $43,000. The alleged scam is estimated to have made 3 million pounds or over $5.1 million.\n\nAfter taking the money from the Canada-bound asylum seekers, the 24-year-old former employee allegedly told them to fly from India to the U.K. on a temporary visa.\n\n\n\nA former British Airways employee has allegedly fled to India after being arrested for allegedly helping Indian citizens get around immigration laws so they could claim asylum in Canada.\n\nAs initially reported in The Times of London on Tuesday, the employee who worked at Heathrow airport in London, U.K., is said to have enabled people without proper documentation to get on flights to Canada so that they could claim asylum upon entering the country. He allegedly charged £25,000 per person or about $43,000. The alleged scam is estimated to have made 3 million pounds or over $5.1 million. \n\nAccording to the Times of London, Canadian immigration officials raised concerns after noticing an influx of people flying to Toronto or Vancouver without proper documentation, and claiming asylum.\n\nNormally, airline employees would check if passengers are eligible to fly to their destination, but, using his position at British Airways, the 24-year-old was allegedly able to falsely claim that his victims had the proper documentation for travel to Canada. The former employee’s process was allegedly to make sure that the prospective immigrants came to his check-in desk at the airport. Later, he would allegedly meet them again during the boarding process and falsely report they had the correct documents a second time.\n\nThe former British Airways employee was arrested on Jan. 6, but after making bail, he and his partner, who also worked for British Airways, fled to India, where he reportedly owns multiple properties and is still on the run from U.K. and Indian authorities. If he is captured, India and the U.K. have an extradition treaty.\n\n\n\n\nA former British Airways employee has allegedly fled to India after being arrested for allegedly helping Indian citizens get around immigration laws so they could claim asylum in Canada.\n\nAs initially reported in The Times of London on Tuesday, the employee who worked at Heathrow airport in London, U.K., is said to have enabled people without proper documentation to get on flights to Canada so that they could claim asylum upon entering the country. He allegedly charged £25,000 per person or about $43,000. The alleged scam is estimated to have made 3 million pounds or over $5.1 million. \n\nAfter taking the money from the Canada-bound asylum seekers, the 24-year-old former employee allegedly told them to fly from India to the U.K. on a temporary visa.\n\n\n\nAccording to the Times of London, Canadian immigration officials raised concerns after noticing an influx of people flying to Toronto or Vancouver without proper documentation, and claiming asylum.\n\nNormally, airline employees would check if passengers are eligible to fly to their destination, but, using his position at British Airways, the 24-year-old was allegedly able to falsely claim that his victims had the proper documentation for travel to Canada. The former employee’s process was allegedly to make sure that the prospective immigrants came to his check-in desk at the airport. Later, he would allegedly meet them again during the boarding process and falsely report they had the correct documents a second time.\n\nThe former British Airways employee was arrested on Jan. 6, but after making bail, he and his partner, who also worked for British Airways, fled to India, where he reportedly owns multiple properties and is still on the run from U.K. and Indian authorities. If he is captured, India and the U.K. have an extradition treaty.\n\n\nThis is not the first time that Indian citizens have entered Canada on false pretences. Over the past half-decade, dozens of Indian students faced deportation after unknowingly using falsified acceptance letters to Canadian universities.\n\nNational Post reached out to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada for comment, but did not hear back before publication.

I'm not Indian, I'm indigenous from Canada and I grew up in Vancouver, where the population is mostly from Asia. Being surrounded by people of asian descent is very normal for me. I don't expect anyone to assimilate and lose their culture to exist here. I knew we had a large population of Sikhs here but I didn't think it was nearly as many as in India... and now I find out there are more sikhs here than in India. Amazing. I also didn't know we had so many Sikhs in parliament, let alone Indians. My school is mostly Indian and everyone I talk to has come from Punjab. Everyone seems to love it here, and the school is in the middle of little Punjab so I've been told by my classmates it is the perfect place for the students who are homesick because they are surrounded by their community. I rarely hear English when I walk down the halls, there is even a course to learn to speak Punjabi, which I want to take so I can talk to the students who don't speak English as well. We have many large gurdwaras, and one near me I've eaten langar almost everyday for the past 10 years. Most people here know Sikhs to be very generous and humble. It was a shock to me when I heard the president of Guru Nanak Gurdwara was shot, because I believed Sikhs to be very kind and peaceful, and the gurdwara has a very good reputation as they take lots of food into Vancouver and feed the homeless. They even opened a kitchen in the DTES during the pandemic to be able to have food available to the people immediately. No one else did anything like that. They delivered a lot of food. Now they have an auxiliary kitchen in the DTES permanently that serves free meals. I thought more news would come out of the shooting but it seemed quiet for a bit until Trudeau accused the Indian government of the attack. This news also shocked me, so I decided to start looking into it slowly. I couldn't really get a good idea of what was going on until I searched a video for Diwali and your videos came up. I will share it with my husband so he can be educated on the matter as well. Thank you for your diligent research and dissemination of important knowledge.

Moving to Vancouver was a great experience tbh, I'm of nigerian heritage but was born in Finchley, North London...\nCanadians are friendly and extremely welcoming ( Coming from the UK i found this so off-putting ) lol. Ironically its non-white Canadians i had funny experiences with.... from dating to renting its weird\n\n\nAsians under 27 always asking some crazy questions ( Are you an NBA player ) lol it's cute at first but after a while when little koreans walk up to me talking about ( You look like will smith ) it makes you think... To be fair these are not inherent negatives, But asian canadians alone did treat me weird i found, Indian girls i met all wanted to be with me but where also very ashamed to say so or let their family know, but thats a cultural thing so i understood.\n\n\n Of all the demographics White canadian and native men where the most welcoming and open to me, in my experience.. White women of-course where cool too but that does not really count, especially as a good looking black guy with an accent LOOL you know how that goes!! My Tinder and Bumble were obscene LMAO\n\nRenting from asians while black and Male!? is almost impossible!!! Except they think you have rich parents!! Its impossible in Van unless you are an Arab exchange student lol \nArab and Persian students studying english have no issues renting in Vancouver, for some reason!!\n\nI lived out the St. Regis downtown for a month, Looking for places to rent, i had seen so many places online and filled out applications but never got call backs, asides from 2 group showings i went to, i could not even set up a viewing with the apartment building i wanted... \n\nTill i met an african girl in school, and she told me something i found completely crazy.\nShe told me to make a new e-mail addy and to use my English name when i e-mail, then set up a viewing but to show up with a white friend preferably a girl and that if the owner is asian, i should look around, and offer to pay 6months upfront before they get a chance to ask what i did for work or whether i was a student or not LOL. Needless to say, i did what she said and It worked the asian lady asked me to come get the keys later that day. Its just life, as a property owner they really just wanna size you up, not fair and kind of pathetic but its not inherently evil...