Indian couple convicted for immigration scam
18 May 2012 6:03 AM GMT
An Indian citizen who arrived as a student in 2000 and went on to perpetuate a series of immigration scams to earn hundreds of thousands of pounds by helping many Indian citizens and others to stay in Britain illegally, has been jailed for 10 years.
Vijay Sorthia, 35, will be deported to India at the end of his 10-year sentence, while his 31-year-old his wife, Bhawna Sorthia, who helped him carry out the scams, was jailed for 15 months and also faces deportation to India.
The couple have three children.
The sentences were pronounced in the Isleworth Crown Court on Wednesday.
When Sorthia was arrested at his house in north-west London in May 2010, officials of the UK Border Agency (UKBA) found over 330,000 pounds in cash.
Sorthia and his wife ran an immigration advisory company called Migration Gurus.
UKBA spokesman Adam Edwards said: 'Mr Sorthia had dozens of clients who had applied to the Home Office for extensions to their visas, claiming to be 'highly skilled migrants'. They were mainly Indian and most of them were already here'.
Vijay Sorthia, 35, will be deported to India at the end of his 10-year sentence, while his 31-year-old his wife, Bhawna Sorthia, who helped him carry out the scams, was jailed for 15 months and also faces deportation to India.
The couple have three children.
The sentences were pronounced in the Isleworth Crown Court on Wednesday.
When Sorthia was arrested at his house in north-west London in May 2010, officials of the UK Border Agency (UKBA) found over 330,000 pounds in cash.
Sorthia and his wife ran an immigration advisory company called Migration Gurus.
UKBA spokesman Adam Edwards said: 'Mr Sorthia had dozens of clients who had applied to the Home Office for extensions to their visas, claiming to be 'highly skilled migrants'. They were mainly Indian and most of them were already here'.
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