Like millions of people in India, Prinjal dreamt of migrating to Australia in search of a better life.

The 19-year-old had made up her mind about it when she was just a girl, taken by the country’s freedom, education system and potential to earn money.

So she was thrilled when she received her enrolment certificate for Willows Institute, a private college in Adelaide last December.

“Everyone here was expecting me to leave any day. They even bought bags so I could start packing,” she told 7.30.

Prinjal hails from Seedpur, a small village in Haryana’s northern state. Her family turned to a migration agency, World Visa Advisors, located in Chandigarh, about two hours away.

The agency assured them that all necessary paperwork was completed: She had passed her English exam, proven her genuine student status, cleared her medical test, and paid all the required fees into the agency’s accounts.

The final step was securing a student visa from the Australian government.

“I was so excited,” she said.

Office locked shut and staff missing

Prinjal was due to start her business diploma this July, but as the date got closer she still had not received her visa.

Her older brother Ajay decided to visit the World Visa Advisors office.

Ajay says his heart sank.

“This was a huge fraud. These are not good days for us,” Ajay said crying.

Prinjal’s father Satpal is a farmer. He owns an acre of paddy fields and drives a cab to make ends meet.

Satpal says he took out a $13,000 loan against his farm to pay for his daughter’s college course and the agent’s fees.

Now it’s all gone.

The fraud unravels

Ajay filed a complaint with Chandigarh police who informed him that all the documents they had paid for, including the offer letter from Willows Institute and the certificate of enrolment from Australia’s Department of Education, were fake.

Prinjal was devastated.

“I just thought, ‘How can this happen to me?’ I felt like all my dreams had been shattered,” he said.

The family tried to contact World Visa Advisors again with no luck. A few days later, in early July, news reports revealed that the agents had been arrested for fraud.

Police confirmed to 7.30 that staff from the company had been held for a few days after four different victims made similar complaints.

Authorities say the agency has defrauded scores of families across northern India by promising visas to Australia, with the alleged fraud totalling more than $1.2 million so far. 

“They don’t care if we live or die. They just wanted our money and now they’ve fled. Now we have to chase them begging for our money,” Aarti said. Her daughter Kaniska lodged her student visa file through the same agency.

“Now I have a mental condition. I don’t remember many things,” Kaniska said.

7.30 made multiple attempts to contact World Visa Advisors and its agents but received no response.

Ghost institutes and their toll

As part of the investigation, 7.30 also attempted to contact Willows Institute in Adelaide.

The team visited the college at different times of the day on three separate occasions, but each time found it closed.

Willows Education Australia Pty Ltd, the company under which the institute operates, has had three directors since it was registered in 2019. The second director, listed on the institute’s paperwork, ceased his duties in July.

7.30 managed to contact the first director, but he refused to answer questions about the institute.

Willows has a minimal online presence, including a Facebook page with 20 followers and an Instagram account with zero posts.

A spokesperson for the Australian Skills Quality Authority, the national regulator for Australia’s vocational education and training sector, confirmed Willows Institute was under audit after receiving a referral from the Department of Home Affairs in May last year. 

Its registration was then cancelled in June this year “due to the seriousness of the issues identified and in order to mitigate the risk of any further harm”. 

The regulator has also received a complaint indicating that Willows Institute “may not be genuine”.

The current director of Willows Institute, Dilpreet Singh, rejected that claim, telling 7.30 in an email that Willows Institute was “legitimate” and it was challenging the registration cancellation at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. 

Police at one Chandigarh station have estimated that nearly 400 families have fallen victim to visa fraud, collectively losing close to $4.5 million in the first half of 2024.

Last month a father from Punjab died by suicide after his daughter was given a fake admission letter for a different Australian college.

The woman declined an interview but spoke to 7.30 over text.

“I and my family are unable to overcome this sorrow,” she texted.

“It is very painful to lose a father and he was very upset because of the fraud done with us.

New cap on student numbers

In August, the Australian government announced a cap on international student enrolments, limiting intake to 270,000 starting next year.

Over the past year, the federal government has more than doubled the student visa application fee, introduced higher English proficiency requirements, and implemented stricter criteria to determine a student’s genuine status.

These changes were introduced to curb net migration and stamp out fraud in the industry. They were also intended to prevent visa switching as a backdoor entry to working in Australia.

The changes have affected Indian students, who make up the second-largest group of international students in Australia.

Last year, 126,000 Indian students were studying in the country, a 26 per cent increase compared to the previous year.

Many of these students hail from the northern Indian states of Punjab and Haryana.

Migration experts have told 7.30 that recent changes by the Australian government have made it more challenging for students to obtain study visas.

Ms Dhawan noted a steady drop in student numbers across her 73 branches and criticised the changes.

“Australia is not able to control the students who are switching colleges, so they are not able to control the problem in their own house, so they’ve started cleaning offshore,” she said.

“They are giving the punishment to offshore people [who are] genuine.”

Ms Dhawan believes that rather than curbing the problem, restricting access to Australia has fuelled a rise in unethical practices. 

She says an honest agent will tell their client their chances to study in Australia are limited.

“The fraud will say, ‘You give me this much money and I will send you by this or that way.’ So this will increase more fraud,” she said.

In a statement, a spokesperson from the Department of Home Affairs said the “student visa regulations are intended to ensure that only genuine students are granted visas to study in Australia”.

Prinjal’s family has criticised the police for delays in their investigation.

“Why aren’t the police investigating these frauds? They should be beaten with sticks so that they do not target others like us,” Prinjal’s grandmother said.

Her priority is to recover the money and focus on her granddaughter’s future.

Watch 7.30, Mondays to Thursdays at 7:30pm on ABC iview and ABC TV.