Three women charged after investigation of fraudulent enrollment
September 21, 2023
Iqaluit, Nunavut
News release
Iqaluit RCMP has charged three Ontario based females in relation to a complaint of fraudulent enrollment into the Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporation (NTI) beneficiary list.
An investigation began earlier this year and it was found that between October 2016, and September 2022 the women were found to have applied for and obtained Inuit beneficiary status as adopted Inuit children, through Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporation (NTI).
The women used this Inuit beneficiary status to defraud the Kakivak Association and Qikiqtani Inuit Association of funds that are only available to Inuit beneficiaries by obtaining grants and scholarships.
On September 14, 2023 Karima Manji (59), Amira Gill (25) and Nadya Gill (25) were charged with 2 counts each of Fraud over $5000 contrary to Section 380(1)(a) of the Criminal Code.
Manji, Amira and Nadya Gill are scheduled in Iqaluit court on October 30, 2023.
Nunavut RCMP charge Gill sisters, mother with fraud for claiming Inuit status
Karima Manji, Amira and Nadya Gill each charged with fraud over $5,000
Posted: Sep 21, 2023 1:24 PM EDT | Last Updated: September 22
Iqaluit RCMP say they’ve charged three women with fraud over $5,000 for claiming Inuit status.
Twin sisters Amira and Nadya Gill, as well as the woman who claims to be their adoptive mother Karima Manji, face two charges each.
The allegations are that the women used their status “to defraud the Kakivak Association and Qikiqtani Inuit Association of funds that are only available to Inuit beneficiaries by obtaining grants and scholarships.”
As first reported by Nunatsiaq News in March, the twins have claimed to be Inuit, though Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI) confirmed to CBC that neither they nor their adoptive mother had received funding from NTI. NTI is responsible for overseeing the enrolment of Inuit under the Nunavut Agreement.
NTI launched an investigation and said it removed them from its enrolment list, and RCMP confirmed at that point they had opened an investigation into the matter as well.
In a news release Thursday morning, Iqaluit RCMP said an investigation found that between October 2016 and September 2022, the women applied for and obtained Inuit beneficiary status for the Gill sisters as adopted Inuit children.
That appears to line up with dates from NTI, who said the sisters were added to the Inuit enrolment list in 2016 after Manji applied on their behalf. Manji had identified Kitty Noah, an Inuk woman, as the twins’ birth mother, the organization said.
But Kitty’s son, Noah Noah, has said Kitty isn’t related to the twins.
Speaking to CBC News last week, before the charges were publicly announced, Noah Noah said police had just told him that charges would be laid against Manji and the Gill twins.
He called it “really, really great news.”
“I honestly didn’t know how it was going to play out. So, I mean, the fact that [they’re] being charged makes me very, for lack of better words, happy,” he said.
Noah said his mother Kitty died a couple of months ago.
“I know she would have been very happy with this as well, so that’s some relief for the family,” he said.
‘Another form of colonization’
NTI president Aluki Kotierk told CBC News that if the Gill sisters and Manji are found guilty, they should, “at a minimum,” return any funds they received from the Inuit associations.
Kotierk also defended NTI’s existing process for enrolling Inuit under the Nunavut Agreement. She said the process “has worked,” because the Gill sisters and Manji were ultimately investigated and charged.
“When we receive an application and it indicates who the birth family are and they’re Inuit, and we know that they’re Inuit, we’re not questioning every Inuk to say, ‘Did you give birth? Did this happen?’” Kotierk said.
“I would say that the process has worked, in the sense that when there were community members who came forward and said something’s not right, that we’ve looked into it.”
Still, Kotierk said NTI will provide more training for community enrolment committees to ensure they understand the process. She also said NTI will consider changing where people can submit applications for enrolment.
To Kotierk, the case involving the Gill sisters and Manji fits into what she sees as a larger trend, beyond just Nunavut, of non-Indigenous people claiming Indigenous identity.
“It’s just another form of colonization,” she said.
“You’ve wanted to take our language away from us. You’ve wanted to take our dogs away from us. You’ve wanted to take our culture away from us. Now you’re trying to claim our identity? It’s just flabbergasting.”
Manji and the Gill sisters are all scheduled to appear in court in Iqaluit on Oct. 30.
Canadian twins ‘pretended to be Inuit to receive more than $10,000 in college scholarships and grants for their facemask business’
Amira and Nadya Gill, 25, are accused of lying about their heritage for money
They said they’d been adopted and their birth mother was an Inuk woman
PUBLISHED: 19:11 BST, 25 September 2023 | UPDATED: 23:42 BST, 25 September 2023
A pair of Canadian twin sisters have been charged with fraud after allegedly pretending to be Inuit to obtain more than $10,000 in scholarships and grants for their online business.
Amira and Nadya Gill, 25, were charged along with their mother, Karima Manji, with fraud of over $5,000 each.
According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, they told police they were the biological daughters of Inuit woman Kitty Noah, and that Manji had adopted them.
The lie won them scholarships and grants for their online business that sold COVID face masks.
The sisters regularly advertised the brand as Inuit-owned, and promoted it in the local media.
The fraud is said to have been between 2016 and 2022.
It remains unclear whether the girls are adopted, or if they are Manji’s biological children.
The alleged fraud was first exposed in March, when the Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. announced it was investigating the girls’ claims.
Noah, the Inuk woman who the girls had claimed was their birth mom, died in July this year.
Before her death, she publicly denied giving birth to the girls.
Her son, Noah Noah, told CBC in April: ‘She was definitely taken advantage of by this Karima Manji.
‘They are not my mom’s twins. We had a conversation with her about it and she was just as flabbergasted as we were.’
The NTI said the fraud is the first of its kind in the organization’s history.
After graduating from college, the sisters started a business during COVID selling facemasks.
They promoted it locally, appearing on local outlet CTV Ottawa.
All three women are due to appear in court in Ottawa next month.
Noah’s family say they are outraged by the lies.
They believe Manji only knows about their family, who live in Iqaluit, because she once dated a man in the family.
Aluki Kotierk, the president of the NTI, fumed at the alleged fraud.
‘You’ve wanted to take our language away from us. You’ve wanted to take our culture away from us.
‘Now you’re trying to claim our identity? It’s just flabbergasting.’
Neither of the twins, nor their mother, has commented publicly.
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