Conning temporary foreign workers into paying bogus government fees to work in Canada has landed three Calgary restaurant owners jail terms.
Justice Sandra Mah on Monday agreed with Crown prosecutor Brandy O’Ferrall that a period behind bars was warranted for Maninkandan Kasinathan, Chandramoahan Marjak and Mary Roche for defrauding their employees.
But Mah stopped short of the nine-month terms O’Ferrall was seeking for each offender, instead handing them 90-day terms, which will be served on weekends.
The Calgary Court of Justice judge also ordered each to serve 18 months of probation with conditions that include they have no contact with their three victims.
As well, Mah ordered the trio to pay back the $44,000 they duped their employees into paying.
The three were partners in Marina Dosa Tandoori Grill and had hired the three men to work as cooks.
But after each moved to Canada, they were told they were required to pay $24,000 for a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) for government fees related to their immigration to Canada.
Under the temporary foreign workers program, employers were required to pay a processing fee of $1,000 for an LMIA document required to hire a foreign national.
Defence lawyers Faizan Butt, for Roche, and Sofian Butt, for her two male co-accused, had suggested conditional sentence orders to be served in the community would be sufficient punishment.
But Mah ruled Roche, Kasinathan and Marjak breached a position of trust and authority over their victims.
One, Parthiban Ramalingam, paid the full $24,000 after migrating to Canada in 2017 and working at the restaurant as a line cook.
He ultimately reported the payments to the Canada Border Services Agency and police, and ultimately resigned from the job after receiving an open work permit.
Two others, Venkatesan Durairaj and Vijayasankar Krishnan, made partial payments of $12,000 and $8,000, respectively.
Mah said there were multiple aggravating circumstances justifying a jail sentence, including that the offenders “threatened to send them back to India if they didn’t pay.”
“The victims were relying on the offenders for their ability to stay in Canada,” she said.
“The victims understood if they did not pay the money they were at risk of losing their job,” Mah said.
Roche, 54, Kasinathan, 39, and Marjak, 48, were each convicted of fraud last May.
At the request of their lawyers, their intermittent jail terms will begin Jan. 30.
