Why pay heavy sum to Unscrupulous agents for Immigration

Craze of the foreign land, especially in Asian Countries can make a man take extreme measures. Few years ago, in Malta Boat Tragedy, hundreds of youth met watery grave when the dingy boat that was ferrying them illegally capsized. It appeared at that time that heavy public out cry would force police crack down on unscrupulous agents, but again after a lull these agents are back with more vigor than ever before.

Another thing that is becoming increasingly clear that normally clients of such agents are illiterate people mostly from rural back ground. In urban areas, where aware ness levels are high, licensed and approved immigration agents get more clients. Personally, I would not blame these poor and hapless farmer for falling in traps of these illegal agents who some times charge such heavy fees that quite often most clients have to sell their land holding etc. if you see their life closely, they are plagued with diminishing land holding, poor living conditions, diminishing returns from farm lands that it is quite natural for them to look forward for greener pastures.

Recently, Mr. Katara, Minister in a southern India State, was caught in human trafficking and more skeletons are tumbling out of their cupboards.

What has promptly me to write this blog is to spread word of awareness among potential immigrants who do not qualify under skilled workers category. Such persons who have reportedly been paying sums like Rs 30 lakh to become kabootars (illegal migrants) may have missed a trick. For as little as Rs 45 lakh, an entire family can become Canadian citizens completely legally. The majority of Indians hankering to settle abroad may not know this, but many Indian businessmen have been utilizing schemes floated by these countries to gain citizenship in return for investing a few hundred thousand dollars there. What’s more, some foreign banks are even willing to part-finance your investment.

Governments in the US, Canada, UK, New Zealand and Australia, among others, are offering citizenship to anybody (and his/her family) who is willing to invest a certain minimum sum in their country. The sums vary in each case, as do the strings attached.

In the UK, citizenship comes with an investment of £750,000 (about $1.5 million or a little over Rs 6 crore). In the US, $500,000 (Rs 2 crore) will get you and your family citizenship, for New Zealand a million New Zealand dollars (Rs 3 crore). In Australia, there is no minimum investment stipulated. However, a commitment to start a business within four years will do the trick.

In the case of Canada, the stipulated minimum investment that gets you automatic citizenship is 400,000 Canadian dollars or about Rs 1.4 crore. However, a major Canadian bank, Desjardins — with assets of $130 billion and ranked 92nd internationally — has come up with its own scheme under which it will finance around 70% of the amount if the investor makes a down payment of 30%. That means just Rs 45 lakh will do to get you Canadian citizenship.

Citizenship-for-investment schemes have been around for a couple of years in most cases, but Indians were unable to take advantage of them as they were not allowed to invest more than $25,000 per year abroad till December last year. With the RBI increasing the limit from $25,000 to $50,000 and then to $100,000 last month, ‘buying’ foreign citizenship has become possible. A family of five, for instance, could take out $500,000 in one go without violating RBI guidelines.

The C$400,000 are invested in interest-free Canadian government bonds. After five years, when the government returns the money, the bank will keep all of it.

In effect, the C$120,000 you pay upfront becomes the interest earned by the bank on the C$280,000 that it lends you to file the application.