An asylum seeker who entered Canada on a flight from Hong Kong disguised as an elderly Caucasian man was coached by mainland 'snakeheads' to lie about who he was to Canadian immigration officials.
The asylum seeker told an Immigration and Refugee Board hearing in Vancouver that the snakeheads, or people smugglers, deliberately instructed him on what to say before he arrived in the country.
The 20-year-old man, who cannot be named to protect his identity, appeared in person for the first time at the hearing on Thursday. The man admitted he lied to Canada Border Service Agency officials when he first arrived in Vancouver last October on a flight from Hong Kong.
When asked by a government lawyer why he did not tell the truth about his education and employment, he replied: 'The snakeheads told me to say I had only elementary school.'
'He's afraid of the snakeheads,' the claimant's lawyer, Dan McLeod, said. 'He did what he was told.'
The asylum seeker wants to be released to a friend of his father's who lives in Toronto, but the government lawyer argued that because of the lies he told Canadian immigration officials, the man was a flight risk who should be held in custody.