British Sikh Charity Trustee in UK Barred for Visa Fraud

The integrity watchers of Britain’s charities have nullified the benefits attached to a specified beneficiary of the Sikh charity organization and banned him from participating in any activities organized by the foundation in the nearest future, after he was charged and found culpable of misrepresenting the organization and trying to use their name in a failed fraud scheme to bring in Indian citizens to the United Kingdom.

In February 2016, the commission in charge of the charity has exempted the Khalsa Missionary Society from the United Kingdom’s national register, and its mandatory investigation which ended on Friday found a certain 57-year-old beneficiary Ravinder Singh of misappropriating the benefits attached to his position as a beneficiary of the charity.

The integrity watchers had begun its mandatory investigation in 2014 after the United Kingdom home office opened up a criminal inquiry into the charity.

The charity was created with the aim to advancing the Sikh religion in the United Kingdom via meetings and teachings, and also making papers of the religion of Sikhism. As a part of an elaborate permit fraud, migrants from India paid a sum of around £4,500 to the Khalsa Missionary Society to support their permit applications as religious teachers for the charity in the country.

“A lot of migration fraud has been carried out using the charity’s name.

The plot of the fraud was carried out by persons sponsoring persons pretending to be religious teachers for the charity. Money was paid and moved around via the organisation’s bank accounts to give the allure that the charity organisation was receiving legal payments,” the charity commission stated in a published report.

“The investigation was concluded when we discovered that there had been gross misconduct on the part of the charity.

Individuals from the charity had breached their normal duties and gone beyond the realms of their powers by using the charity organisation as a front for migration fraud.”

The head of inquiry at the commission disclosed that they were working closely with law enforcement bodies to stop and disorganise the misuse of charities across the country.

“Beneficiaries of these charities must carry and conduct themselves with the highest form of integrity and abstain from using the charity for personal gains.

They must not attempt to use the name of the charity for business,” a representative of the commission stated.

The investigation carried out by the charity had discovered that Ravender was the only current beneficiary in the charity organisation and in January 2016 had been removed from the charity.