Mechanic who posed as dental student gets sentenced

An auto mechanic in Canada who claimed to be a dental student to obtain a $350,000 line of credit that was available only to those studying to a be a doctor or dentist was sentenced on February 21, according to a story published in the Richmond News.

After pleading guilty to using a forged letter, Alberto Cuellar Ojeda, 30, was sentenced to an eight-month conditional sentence with house arrest, 10 hours of community service, and he was ordered to pay back $29,167. Also, Ojeda who was born in raised in Mexico but became a permanent resident of Canada in 2019, will be inadmissible in Canada due to his conviction, according to the story.

In November 2019, Ojeda purportedly applied to a bank for a $350,000 student line of credit available to dental and medical students. At the time of the application, he reportedly provided a letter that appeared to be from an associate vice president at the University of British Columbia Dentistry in Canada and stated that he was enrolled in the doctorate dental medicine program, according to the story.

However, Ojeda was never enrolled at the university, and the letter he presented to the bank was forged. The mechanic was approved for the loan and between November 2019 and February 2020 withdrew $30,000. Ojeda’s scam fell under the radar for nearly three years until his arrest in August 2023, according to the news report.