Immigration officer jailed over bribes
Sidnei Ramalho feared for his life after receiving a disturbing call from his immigration officer.
Ramalho, 33, came to Canada from Brazil in 2005 to study English and further his computer systems career. When he applied to stay permanently, his application was handled by George Gonsalves Barriero, an immigration officer with Citizenship and Immigration Canada who has since pleaded guilty to three counts of breaching the trust of public office.
Barriero, 55, had already demanded bribes of $5,500 from two other immigrants when he used his personal cellphone, against CIC policy, to call Ramalho and demand $2,000 to expedite his application in March 2010.
Barriero lost his job in December 2010 and entered the guilty plea in June. On Thursday, at the Ontario Court of Justice in Etobicoke, Justice Andrea Tuck-Jackson sentenced him to 44 months in prison.
When Barriero called him, Ramalho initially thought his honesty was being tested, he said in an interview.
“He said: ‘I want to help you, but you need to help me,’ ” Ramalho recalled. “‘If you help me, you’re going to have a nice letter come to your home.’ ” The question left Ramalho trembling, and Barriero, who mentioned something about going on vacation, sensed his nervousness.
“‘You’ve never done anything like this before, have you?’ ” Ramalho remembers being asked before Barriero told him he would swing by to pick up the money.
“I don’t know him, I don’t know what he’s capable of,” Ramalho said. “I was really afraid he could send some guy here to kill me.” His immigration consultant warned him not to communicate with Barriero any further while the RCMP investigated.
“I was shocked because I didn’t expect this to happen in Canada,” said Ramalho. “When I moved here, I had the perception I was leaving corruption behind. The irony is that I came here to meet it.”
“This category of offence strikes at the heart of the integrity of government,” Tuck-Jackson told a sobbing Barriero in court, adding that “the reputation of Canada as a nation which will not tolerate corruption in government” must be upheld.