ABU DHABI // Four UAE students were among more than 100 people from the Middle East said to have paid up to US$1,500 (Dh5,500) each to have someone else attend classes and take exams for them so that they could obtain and keep American student visas.
The four were being held by police in California last night charged with visa fraud.
The "test-taking ring" was allegedly run by Eamonn Higgins, 46, from Orange County, who surrendered to US authorities on Monday following an eight-month investigation that involved the FBI and Los Angeles police.
Sixteen people from the Middle East were arrested, US immigration officials said. Six, including the UAE students, have been charged. The rest faced deportation.
All four UAE students were registered at the state's Irvine Valley College. They enrolled between August 2007 and January this year.
Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said they were taken into custody and handed over to the US Marshals.
It was possible that more people could be charged, she added.
Immigration officials were searching for dozens of others thought to be involved in the ring, who are believed to still be in the US.
Since the US requires non-citizens to be full-time students to be eligible for student visas, the alleged scheme would have falsely granted foreigners the right to stay in the country.
According to US authorities, Mr Higgins charged between $1,000 and $1,500 to take final examinations and English proficiency tests. He also recruited others to pretend to be students, police said.
In one case, a blonde woman was said to have taken the place of a Middle Eastern man.
Mr Higgins is also accused of forging identification documents such as driver's licences, which are required to sit the exams.
ICE said the students involved were from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Turkey, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE. The alleged ring ran from 2002 until last December.
The UAE Embassy in Washington said: "We are aware of the situation in California involving federal charges and arrests of individuals alleged to have participated in fraudulent student visa activity.
"We are obviously concerned about these allegations and will continue to monitor the proceedings. We are prepared to co-operate with all officials as the process moves forward."
Authorities searched Mr Higgins's home in Laguna Niguel. They said he sat tests for foreign students in business, mathematics, marketing, sociology and English. If found guilty, Higgins would face up to five years in federal prison. He has been released on $5,000 bail.
The students were registered fraudulently in junior colleges and universities in California.
In the US, the case has raised concerns about security, with some expressing fears such "students" could may be connected to terrorist activity. Police have said there is no such evidence.
"Visa fraud poses a significant security vulnerability and undermines the integrity of our nation's legal immigration system," said John Morton, the assistant secretary at the department of homeland security, which oversees the ICE.
"We will move aggressively to identify and prosecute those who engage in fraud and corrupt the immigration process for profit."
The scrutiny of foreign students once they arrived on a US campus was a "serious chink in the armour" of the system, said Janice Kephart, the national security policy director at the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies.
"Vulnerability with universities remains a top issue," she said. "It's a clean way to come into the US."
* The National with additional reporting from the Associated Press
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
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