Canadian border officials have arrested a star player on an Ontario high school basketball team — saying he's actually a 30-year-old man.
The Windsor Star reports Jonathon Nicola, a refugee from South Sudan who claims he is 17 years old, was arrested for contravening the Immigration Refugee Protection Act on Wednesday.
Authorities did not elaborate what the Windsor, Ont. Catholic school student did specifically to violate the act.
Nicola has a profile on UPlayCanada.com, an organization that helps student athletes with volunteering and scholarship opportunities. Videos and Facebook posts describe him as a 17-year-old Grade 11 student who is six-foot-10 — although the Star says he is six-foot-nine.
In an earlier Postmedia interview, Nicola says it took him six months to arrange a student visa to study in Canada.
"I'm really happy that I'm here, happy with the nice people over here to support me," he said at the time.
A spokesman for the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board told the Star that he could not comment and that "there’s not a whole lot to say.”
Nicola's player profile on the Catholic Central Comets' website has been deleted as of Thursday.
A screengrab from a cached version of the profile page shows four YouTube videos embedded. Three are deleted.
(Screengrab/Cometbasketball.com)
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