Man Charged in Visa Fraud Scheme
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The operator of two English language schools was charged Wednesday with running a scheme that allowed foreign nationals, including several Russian prostitutes, to fraudulently obtain student visas to enter and stay in the United States.
Bezhad “Ben” Zaman, 50, of Beverly Hills, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Iran, was arrested by federal agents without incident in what investigators believe is the largest student visa fraud scheme ever staged on the West Coast, authorities said. He was charged with seven counts of fraud and misuse of visa, one count of conspiring to money-launder and six counts of concealment for money laundering.
{snip}
Zaman runs Concord English Language Center and the International College for English Studies, both on Wilshire Boulevard. He is suspected of helping ineligible foreign nationals fraudulently obtain student visas and keeping them enrolled in his schools even though they did not attend classes, authorities said.
The so-called F-1 visas allow foreigners to remain in the country as long as they are studying full time at a federally approved school.
Both of Zaman’s schools had received federal approval.
But investigators allege that as early as 1999, Zaman had been charging foreign nationals several thousand dollars each to obtain student visas. He allegedly told them that although they did not have to attend his schools, they would be reported to federal authorities if they stopped paying tuition.
{snip}
Email Sam Quinones at sam.quinones@latimes.com.
(Posted on April 11, 2008)
Comments
Interesting. I know the mayor and two city councilmen in Beverly Hills are Iranian Jews, but I did not know they were getting so deeply into the illegal alien rackets.
I guess one has to expect it though. They have only been here 20-30 years and are loyal to their own tribe, nation and race. Maybe in 50-100 years — assuming we can keep any more of them from immigrating and colonizing California, that is.
Posted by Big Bill at 6:55 PM on April 11
Over and over we see it ..the new wave of immigrants have ZERO
love for this country. The USA is a place to scam for a quick
buck…and thats IT. Dear God..when will we put an end to this immigration madness?
Posted by at 9:11 PM on April 11
Lets see another small school promising visas to fee paying foreign students….where have we seen that before, oh yes
Huffman Aviation. 6 years have passed and nothing has changed.
Posted by at 9:24 PM on April 11
Iranians I have met are very nationalistic and aware of who they are. They live among us, but have zero loyalty to their hosts. They are well-represented in organized crime and smuggling, in a way that speaks of their contempt for our society.
Posted by at 9:49 PM on April 11
USA has been picked to the bone by foreign UN American nationals here only to take as much as they can steal/take. The idea that foreigners can come here and become citizens loyal to USA is 5th column. Those who support such ideas today are building/encouraging 5th column. V
Posted by Vickie at 1:08 AM on April 12
Oh yeah…one thing the article doesnt mention.. though “the school” was little more than a store front with a dozen cheap plastic seats for the “students” ..good Ol Ben had
1000 students signed up. It took ICE years before they caught on even though the place is situated right on Wilshire Blvd.
A bit like when the INS mailed Mohammed Atta his visa continuation permit 6 weeks after Sept 11th.
Posted by at 9:40 PM on April 12
these MUSLIM people come here while they kill US troops in Iraq, I OPPOSE the war in Iraq but that does not mean I support the killing of US troops
Posted by enraged at 10:49 PM on April 12
Big Bill, Beverly Hills ballots are in Farsi, as of 2006. The colonization is underway.
Posted by at 12:46 AM on April 13
Iranians refer to themselves as Persians conjuring a civilization from very ancient history. However, the semitic Muslims who now live in the region cannot claim full and direct lineage from the Aryans (of which the country name Iran is derived) in the same way as modern Indians cannot to small numbers of another branch of Aryans who were responsible for the rise of an ancient extinct high civilization there.
In America, many Iranians seem congenial, talkative and even humorous. That’s only because Iranians, at least the ones who somehow ended up here, are better than most other groups in disguising their ethnocentrism. This is particularly true in this age of 9-11 and the public’s attention on central Asians.
Understanding them in depth, they seem more interested in exploiting their host country and its inhabitants rather than seeing it as their new home. The above story about the scam is only the tip of the iceberg from what I have seen, heard of and personally experienced.
Iranians have settled to a large extent in California, more so in the south land, particularly western LA and the Irvine area in Orange County.
Posted by at 2:54 PM on April 13
My Hungarian wife went to a school here in Northern VA - run by an Iranian - that sounds similar to this one.
The school, now called “The Homeland Security Academy” (no joke), I recognized to be a scam just like the one in the article.
The visas held by the students at this “school” are only valid if the student attends that particular school and only that school. The charge was $400 a month.
One way to illustrate what a scam the school is, is that no Americans attended the school. If it were a legitimate school whose goal was to educate students, then all sorts of people would attend, but only foreigners with these limited student visas attend. They attend just to maintain their legitimacy here in the US.
So here we have a foreigner selling residency in the US, the country we built, to other foreigners.
There are probably multiple other “schools” just like these all around the country.
Posted by Dave at 8:01 AM on April 14