Think of it as “NAFTA South” (kinda).

Canada is conned into taking rebels

Three men are behind bars in Colombia and more arrests are expected following the discovery of an elaborate scheme that has duped the Canadian Embassy in Bogota into granting refugee status in Canada to undeserving applicants.

Officials in the Colombian public prosecutor’s office estimate that, this year alone, at least 50 citizens of the violence-plagued South American country have fraudulently obtained residence in Canada as a result of the scam, run by civil servants employed by Colombia’s National Senate.

One Colombian official told the Toronto Star that some of the bogus refugees are members of one or another of the country’s two left-wing guerrilla armies, which have been fighting against government forces for decades in a conflict that has made Colombia one of the world’s most violent countries.

“The investigators believe that some of the guerrillas have got to Canada,” said the official. “It is known that they are guerrillas.”

[…]

According to the Colombian public prosecutor’s office, corrupt officials employed by the human rights commission of the national senate have surreptitiously been providing fake documents to people wishing to emigrate, charging up to 12 million Colombian pesos, or about $6,100 , in each case.

These documents offer bogus confirmation that the bearer has been the victim of a threat of kidnapping or assassination from left-wing guerrillas or the right-wing paramilitary outfits that also roam Colombia’s tormented political landscape.

In some cases, the bearers of these documents have also appeared before the country’s public prosecutor’s office, known as the fiscalia, in order to register an official complaint about the supposed threats, hoping to acquire yet more documentary proof of persecution.

The claimants then approach the immigration section of Canada’s embassy in Bogota to apply for refugee status under an unusual Canadian statute that permits some people to seek political asylum from within their own borders.

The Canadian diplomat in Bogota said such claims are not automatically approved. “It is certainly not a slam-dunk. It’s not as if referral equals interview equals acceptance.”

He agreed, however, that refugee claimants with supporting material from Colombian government agencies stand a greater chance of being granted a Canadian visa.

I know it shouldn’t be funny, but somehow I find the whole idea of being conning the Canadian embassy to be amusing.