Australian authorities have unearthed a major migration scam that has booked ten registered migration agents involved in an organized crime of providing fake documents to foreign students to enable them acquire permanent residency.

The authorities are probing the scam and scrutinizing the documents of thousands of overseas students after they identified agents involved in providing fake documents to foreigners.

According to media reports, these agents have hired a team of seven unregistered “facilitators” to sell false education and work experience documents to international students who were applying for permanent residency,.

In what is called the “template scam,” agents buy letterheads and blank certificates from dodgy trade schools and workplaces for Australian dollars 1000 each, then facilitators fill them out and sell them to students for 5000 to 15,000 Australian dollars.

Immigration department and federal police were investigating the issue.

An immigration spokesman said the size and complexity of the scam was “without precedent.”

A federal source said facilitators did the “dirty work” … “If this was the drug trade, you would call them mules,” he said.

Investigators said 2500 international students have used fake documents in Melbourne this year. Up to 5000 visas could face cancellation within six months as they were granted on illegal paperwork.