Brazilian students in Brisbane and Brazil, and one Portuguese man, together with hundreds of other Latin American students have been tricked in an alleged scam by the exchange agency Tu Futuro en Australia.
The agency that brings Latin American students to the country is involved in a large, scandalous scam, which has been most discussed on social media.
Apparently, the owners of the agency, a couple, have disappeared from the country, having abandoned the agency at some point between Christmas and the beginning of January. 
It is believed that hundreds of Latin Americans, including about 20 Brazilians and one Portuguese man married to a Brazilian woman, may have lost the money they paid the agency to obtain their Australian visas, health insurance, accommodation and enrolment in the schools.
Source: Facebook
Source: Google
We also spoke with 23-year-old Wesley Bezerra, from Sao Paulo, who told us he had paid over $5000 to the agency, that he was furious at having lost it all, but that he is going to start saving up from scratch, with help from Brazilians in Brisbane, to come to Australia – he has not given up.
The Honorary Consul of Brazil in Brisbane, Valmor Morais, told our show that the Brazilian government practically has their hands tied to help the case.
He believes it will be very difficult for those affected – to whom the agency is owing about $800,000 - to see their money again.
Today we speak with other affected Brazilians.
Beatriz: We now have Sabrina Azambuja, from Porto Alegre, on the line. She and her partner lost $8,800 dollars. Hello Sabrina. When did you first believe that you two had lost the money?
Sabrina: To be honest, we still cannot believe it. It’s hard – the penny hasn’t dropped yet. But we must keep going, it’s no use, we’re going ahead anyway, but we are still affected.
Beatriz: Do you believe there is a chance that you will be able to recover this money?
Sabrina: I think it’s very unlikely. From what I’ve seen and from what people are saying in our WhatsApp group, the police haven’t yet started to look into it or to pursue the guys, Stella and Julio, and everything still seems too quiet. I even tried to speak with her by phone, she is still using the same number - online and on WhatsApp. I spoke with her and she blocked us. So since nothing is happening yet, I believe it will be really hard to have the money repaid, and if it does happen, it will take a long time.
Beatriz: And this money that you paid, the $8,800 - $4,400 each - what was it for exactly?
Sabrina: It was to pay the school, the health insurance and 3 weeks of accommodation.
Beatriz: And when would you have been arriving in Australia?
Sabrina: Our classes were to start on 10 March, we were going to arrive in early March.
Beatriz: And what is the situation with your student visa in Australia?
Sabrina: We hadn’t yet applied. We had made the payment for enrolment at the school to the agency. The agency did not submit our payment to the school. Since the agency hadn’t completed the payment to the school, we didn’t have the COE - Confirmation of Enrolment). So, we hadn’t applied for the visa yet because we didn’t have the CoE.
Beatriz: Sabrina, what did you feel when you found out that the agency was no longer in operation?
Sabrina: My, we were floored. We had sold everything that we owned, we sold our car, we had resigned from our jobs. We’re now living with my father-in-law, as a favour to us until our trip. So, we have now lost everything for the sake of making this dream come true. They simply stole from us out of nowhere. Things here are really difficult for us, very difficult. I think we are one of the worst affected couples from the people in the group because we had paid the full course amount upfront.
Beatriz: And your partner, James Quionha, 29 years old, may I speak with him?
James: Hi Beatriz.
Beatriz: Could you tell us what you felt?
James: I felt so utterly unlucky! Imagine... here I have a 9 year career, and I had to leave the company in order to make this dream come true. We had a car, we had everything and we sold all our assets precisely to be able to make this dream a reality, to study and make a better future for us. This agency destroyed everything that we had planned. It was a huge setback, leaving us without a leg to stand on and I didn’t even know where to turn anymore, because we had a lot of money invested for nothing. Simply nothing.
Beatriz: How long did you save for, including all the buying and selling, how many years of your life were spent on this project?
James: It was around 5 years of struggle to be able to get everything together and to have the money to be able to make this dream come true. Besides having to pay everything – the school, the insurance, the whole process – you still need to have some money set aside to be able to survive in the country and support yourself, until you can find some work. Anyway, you need to have a lot of money in reserve. We ended up losing a lot of money as a result of this scam, where the people just disappeared. The disappeared with our money.
Beatriz: Has any type of investigation reached you? Has anyone with some kind of authority come to interview you or have you been able to present your case somewhere?
James: No, nothing Beatriz. We have our Whatsapp group where the people in Australia are talking and trying to help us. We’ve made our story known by circulating it on social media. We’ve done as much as we can with all the evidence we have and no one has approached us, no one has even identified that they are willing to investigate anything. The only person who has helped us up to now is Tiago, who is helping us and all the Brazilians there. To make the authorities pay more attention to this case but until now... nothing. No one has approached us.
Beatriz: What are your plans now, for Australia?
James: Oh, well. Tiago has actually managed to find for us - thank God, and this probably contributes to why we are maybe a little bit less sad, but even so very sad - he has managed to find this school, Riverton, which is one of the schools that we were going to study at, and convinced them to help us go to Australia. He negotiated with the school and set a price that was accessible for us, because of our situation. We had to pay the school fee again, of course a smaller fee, but it is only with this arrangement that we can go to Australia. We haven’t given up on our dream.
Beatriz: You haven’t given up. And will you be here in March?
James: No, not in March anymore because everything is too delayed now. But, God willing, everything will be okay and in April we will be there, if all goes well.
Beatriz: What can you really do, James?
James: Exactly. You become very sad, Beatriz. We became really sad, because we never thought that this could happen in Australia. Today we live in Brazil and you hear a lot of talk in the media about corruption scandals, of robberies and, well, we didn’t think that this could happen in Australia. And unfortunately, we were caught by surprise with this and its really thrown us off.
Beatriz: How did you come to choosing this agency?
James: We chose it online. We closely followed the videos that Tiago had made showing Australia, and he continues to make those videos, showing what life is like there for students, that there is lots of assistance, that it is a very welcoming country and all that. He showed us this agency last year at the beginning of September, when we started everything, and we chose him precisely because the of price – it was more accessible – and we organised everything. It was at the end of December when it all started, when Tiago left the agency - in fact he alerted us about this, but we did not believe that this could happen because the whole process was basically ready. Anyway, that is how we found the guys at Tu Futuro na Australia.
Beatriz: And when did you two find out that it wasn’t going to work out?
James: In January we found out that the people had simply run away, that the agency didn’t exist anymore, that the owner’s house was empty, that everyone had already disappeared and that our money had not been paid to the school, that the money had stayed with them and they ended up leaving with everything. In that moment we felt totally lost, we didn’t know what to do, for weeks thinking ‘what are we going to do?' We don’t have anything left, we sold everything.
Beatriz: What day was this, do you remember?
James: It was the first week of January, if I’m not mistaken, when we came back after the New Year. That’s when we found out.
Beatriz: What do you two do for work in Porto Alegre?
James: I worked is sales now. I was an electronic technician but I moved to the commercial part of the company. And Sabrina worked in IT infrastructure. Our plans in Australia were to study English, to conquer the language, and to renew our visas to be able to complete a specialisation in some area, in Australia, so that when we go back to Brazil we have some type of specialisation and some international experience.
Beatriz: The plan was to spend some time here, then go back to Brazil.
James: That’s right, the plan would be for us to study and professionalise ourselves for the longest time possible, then return to Brazil.
Beatriz: James Quionha and Sabrina Azambuja, thank you for speaking with us. What’s happening to you is a shame, but at least some help has appeared.
James: If God wants it, we still have hope that justice will prevail, and if God wills it, everything will be okay in the end. We are cheering that everything happens as quickly as possible, but from what we’ve seen it seems that it’s going to take a while.
Beatriz: Thank you, we will be in touch again.
James: Thanks, bye bye.
________________________________________________________
Beatriz: Gabriele Fernandea Pinha, in Sao Paulo, also put her money and her dreams into the agency. Gabrielle, tell us your story. When would you be have been arriving in Australia?
Gabriele: The plans were to arrive in April.
Beatriz: How did you receive the news that your payment had not been used for what it should have been used for?
Gabrielle: It was a shock. It was a real shock. We put a lot of trust into the people there, the people offering this service. I’m sure that all of us who have lost this money, we had been saving for a long time its not something that's easy. So it’s a dream, we put this money away and we work every day thinking about this. It really was a shock.
Beatriz: how did you find out?
Gabrielle: From the ex-employee Tiago. Around the 2nd or 3rd of January he sent me an email saying that the agency was having some problems and that he needed to talk to be able to help me out. I went to the agency’s Facebook page and I saw a bunch of complaints and I started to become desperate, trying to get in touch with anyone I could. I got in touch with the school where I was going to be doing the course, and no payment had been made. It was like that.
Beatriz: Do you have any expectations to see this money again?
Gabrielle: I do. I know it won’t be easy. At the moment, a college have offered me a scholarship, which is helping to keep my dream alive, but even so my loss is substantial. They messed with people' s dreams and we save up our money for nothing.
Beatriz: How much you paid to the agency?
Gabrielle: About 8000 reals, 3 to 4 thousand dollars. It is actually a great injustice, no?
Beatriz: What do you do in Araraquara, Gabriele?
Gabriele: I’m an English teacher here.
Beatriz: For how long did you save money to come to Australia?
Gabriele: Look, it would be at least 3 years, because ever since I graduated I’ve been saving money for this. And as you know, teachers don’t earn that much, so I found work at a restaurant in the evenings. I was saving little by little, to be able to do this great thing. In Australia I hope to continue my studies in Education, a course in Early Childcare. That was my idea. I work with English here, I would go to a country that spoke English – it would be marvellous.
Beatriz: When did the penny dropped?
Gabriele: The penny dropped when I heard from the school that the agency hadn’t made the payment. That’s when I started to panic, because I didn’t know what I was going to do. I reread all of my messages, everything that I had saved to find clues. That’s when I cried and, of course, tried to resolve it. I sent a message out to all the people you could imagine. Some people responded to me, some did not, but we’re still trying.
Beatriz: Have you been contacted by any authority to talk about your situation?
Gabrielle: No. In reality, I have only been interviewed by another television station – that is it. No one has reached out. At the moment, only Valmor, from the Consulate, has been in contact with us, but not neccessarily representing the consulate. It was of his own intiative, because he felt for our cause.
Beatriz: How old are you, Gabriele?
Gabriele: I’m 23 years old.
Beatriz: Gabriele Fernanda Pinha, from Araraquara, thank you for talking to us. Good luck to you, and we will be following this story.
Gabriele: Okay, thank you very much.
