Foreigners caught forging TWU transcripts

Posted by admin on Sep 21, 2010 in News | 0 comments

In the past three years there has been at least two situations where transcripts were forged in an attempt to acquire a student visa, which allows foreigners access into Canada.

When the forging of documents was suspected, the Canadian Consulate in the countries where the documents were forged contacted Trinity Western University’s Office of Registrar in order to determine whether or not the documents were authentic. When the documents were sent to TWU for verification, they noticed that there was an unclear pixilation around transcript security features, lines, borders, and the sizing of the TWU logo did not match with authentic transcripts. “We have a number of security features built in. For example; watermarks, temperature and light sensitive backgrounds to guard against photocopying, and other features that I am not at liberty to share,” said Grant McMillan, the University Registrar.

The second, and more recent incident, was more easily caught because the culprit had left multiple spelling mistakes and had done an amateur job of editing names and grades from a current student’s hacked account, which was easily traceable due to the forger leaving the original student’s ID number the same.
The offenders were thought to have attempted it because of the amount of work it would have taken to get a visa approved the right way. “They chose what they saw as the easy route,” said McMillan. But it turned out not to be an easy route at all. “Canada Border Services Agency and CSIS have both said that they are significantly increasing their security measures around student visas. At a fraud symposium that we attended last year, they noted that there are no better ways to insert spies into the country than by forging documents that give credibility, and university documents are among the
most credible.”

CBSA is beginning to press legal charges against anyone who performs such offences, including possible criminal charges, which were laid against one of the offenders. Another consequence is never being allowed to leave your country of origin, which was laid against both of the offenders. “Make sure to protect your private documents. Be sure to log out of the student portal, your online banking, or anything else that has your private information, and change your passwords regularly,” advises McMillan.

Author: Rebecca Selvig