‘He incited his feign grade into a weapon’: Man posing as a counsel tricks clients out of thousands

He dressed like a lawyer, talked like a warn and worked as a lawyer, though in reality, 34-year-old Inayat Kassam was a smooth-talking fraudster with a law grade that wasn’t value a paper it was printed on.

The Aurora, Ont., man purchased his phoney law grade online 5 years ago from a University of Renfrew. The propagandize has no strictly famous accreditation and its website features a feign residence in Tampa, Fla., and stock images of supposed expertise members.

He formerly purchased a bachelor of humanities from Ashwood University, another feign propagandize that claims to be formed in Florida.

Inayat Kassam purchased dual degrees from online diploma mills and claimed he was a lawyer. (Facebook)

The official-looking degrees were adequate to stir Dennis Yang, who was introduced to Kassam in 2014 by a devoted co-worker and hired him to conduct new business for his Toronto law office.  

“He told me he had a law grade from another jurisdiction,” Yang says. “And was now operative on removing protected in Canada.”

• Been wronged?  Contact Erica and her Go Public team

Yang asked Kassam to send him transcripts, anxiety letters and his university diplomas, that seemed to be legitimate.

“The peculiarity that we get from those diploma mills, it was usually outstanding,” Yang says. “I would have suspicion if it was fake, it wouldn’t be so good in terms of how they’ve presented all a documents.”

Phoney transcripts from a University of Renfrew 

University of Renfrew Transcripts (PDF)

University of Renfrew Transcripts (Text)

Yang says he wanted to expand, so he hired Kassam to conduct a new office. He says Kassam mostly worked alone and fast set about preying on new and mostly exposed immigrants.

“He would try to fist as most income out of them as probable on a guarantee he would be means to move their families to Canada,” Yang says. “They really, unequivocally devoted him. They did not consider a thing.”

‘He incited his feign grade into a weapon.’
– warn Dennis Yang

He says some clients maxed out their credit cards to pay Kassam, while others took out second mortgages or lines of credit. 

“I consider that’s usually distressing for them and their families, since now we’re articulate about people in building countries who are now stranded there, when they could have had a possibility to come to Canada.”

Yang says Kassam didn’t take organisation well, and infrequently suggested “doing unsure things for convenience,” which Yang did not allow.

Kassam quit after usually one month.

Lawyer Dennis Yang says ‘there were no red flags’ after Inayat Kassam supposing his transcripts and university degrees. (Ousama Farag/CBC)

“He knew we wasn’t going to let him be a cowboy,” says Yang, who estimates a believe cost him tighten to $100,000 since he had to close down his new bureau after Kassam left. He says a repairs stirred him to pronounce out.

“He incited his feign grade into a weapon,” Yang says. “Without that degree, there’s no approach he could have finished so most harm.”

Kassam had formerly been hired as an bureau manager during dual other Toronto-area law firms. At one of a jobs, he acted as a warn and even acted as warn in court.

For that, Inayat Kassam was convicted progressing this year of dual depends of rascal and one count of uttering feign papers and condemned to 3 years in prison — ironically, a estimate length of time it would take to connoisseur from an tangible law propagandize in Canada.

Bought his law grade in 4 months 

Kassam did not lapse phone calls from Go Public, though in probity papers he claims to have been underneath a sense that Ashwood University and a University of Renfrew were famous universities.

This, notwithstanding never attending classes, never vocalization with a highbrow and never essay a singular paper for possibly his BA or his law degree.

Ontario Superior Court Judge Cary Boswell pronounced Kassam was intent in “a extensive and rather worldly fraud.”

“Dishonesty appears to have turn a approach of life for him,” Boswell pronounced during sentencing behind in January.

Kassam is currently posterior a box opposite CBC for stating on a charges opposite him.

‘He would always ask to be paid in cash’

Jessica Mahal-Mullani went to see Kassam in 2013. A family crony endorsed him after she was sued following a automobile accident.

“He would always ask to be paid in cash,” she says. “And told me he could make my problems go divided for $50,000.”

Kassam, 37, claims he bought a BA in law from Ashwood University and a law grade from a University of Renfrew after online ads assured him a schools were legitimate. (Facebook)

Mahal-Mullani told Go Public she paid him about $28,000 over several months and usually got $10,000 behind after a probity case.

“On tip of that, we had to spend roughly $40,000 on another warn to do a work he should have done,” she says.

“We usually got married, were usually out of propagandize and we’re perplexing to replenish a income we lost. It set us back.”

‘The internet is their wildest dream come true’

John Bear, an consultant in online preparation and co-author of a book on grade mills, says a internet is mostly obliged for a abounding attention that cranks out an estimated $1 billion value of feign degrees worldwide each year.

“Scammers indispensable something that would give them anonymity,” Bear says. “Something that would give them giveaway or inexpensive advertising, and something that would make them roughly unfit to find. The internet is their wildest dream come true.”

Author John Bear shows an impressive-but-phoney Harvard grade he bought from a diploma indent for $40. (John Bear)

Bear says military raids on several U.S.-based diploma mills have fuelled estimates that a extraordinary series of doctoral degrees “earned” in the U.S. are fake.

“There’s transparent justification that some-more than half of a people in any given year who explain a new PhD indeed bought a feign one,” he says.

Victims demure to come forward

Const. Ian Mason of York Regional Police investigated Inayat Kassam’s box and is endangered about a flourishing problem of feign degrees performed online.

“Inevitably, people do something that’s not good with it — possibly by a rapist act or perfect negligence. People are removing spoiled by this and that’s an emanate for society.”

Investigating rascal cases is always a challenge, he says, since people are wavering to acknowledge they’ve been scammed.  

“People feel stupid, and they’re not.”

Fraud questioner Ian Mason says veteran people were simply manipulated by Kassam’s sharp demeanour. (York Regional Police)

He says most fraudsters he’s investigated are “smooth talkers.”

“They’re really slick. They’re really infallible and they work on that since they know how to manipulate people.”

In a deteriorate premiere of Marketplace this Friday, a consumer module digs into annals from a world’s largest diploma mill, formed in Pakistan.

The investigation reveals some-more than 800 Canadians have purchased feign degrees in all from mechanism scholarship to counselling, preparation and engineering.

Appealing his conviction

Dennis Yang was uneasy to hear that Inayat Kassam is usually one of many Canadians who didn’t indeed acquire their preparation credentials.

“Something needs to be done, if there are literally hundreds of these people and some-more each year,” he says. “That’s a really frightful thought.”

Meanwhile, Kassam is appealing his conviction.

He argues his hearing took too prolonged to start and that instead of representing himself in court, he should have had an tangible warn with improved believe of a Canadian rapist probity system.  

With files from Enza Uda, Eric Szeto, Nelisha Vellani

Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/fake-toronto-lawyer-defrauds-clients-1.4276157?cmp=rss