Toronto lawyer Dennis Yang has lost $100,000 to yet another fraudster with a fake law degree.
When Yang was introduced to 34-year-old Inayat Kassam, a smooth talking lawyer from Aurora, Ont, he was impressed. Kassam touted a five year law degree that he acquired from the University of Renfrew.
The only problem was, Renfrew University has absolutely no official accreditation, features stock images of professors on it’s website and features a fake address based in Tampa Florida.
It turns out that Kassam has a history with fraudulent degrees, previously having bought a bachelor of arts degree from Ashwood University, another fake school claiming to be from Florida.
Introduced to Kassam through a trusted friend, Yang hired him to manage new business interests for Yang’s Toronto law office. After providing references, transcripts and the degrees in question, all which seemed legitimate, Kassam stated his degree was from a different jurisdiction and was working on getting accreditation in Canada.
Kassam was hired for expansion purposes, working in Yang’s new office, often alone. He quickly began preying on new and vulnerable immigrants, squeezing as much money as he could from them.
Dennis Yang stated that Kassam didn’t like being supervised and often suggested risky business decisions for the sake of convenience. After a month Kassam quit, costing Yang the aforementioned $100,000 after shutting down the newly opened office.
Kassam was previously hired at multiple other Toronto law offices posing as both a lawyer and appearing as counsel on occasion. Stemming from that, Kassam was convicted earlier this year of two counts of fraud and one count of providing false documents. Kassam was sentenced to three years in prison.
Through court documents, Kassam states that he was under the impression that the degrees from Ashwood and Renfrew were recognized and accurate.
Read the full story at the CBC
