More than 20 Chinese students have been prevented from entering the UK as a result of forged invitations to Cambridge University.

According to VnExpress International, a member of staff at Zhejiang University (ZJU) has been accused of fabricating invitation letters for an exchange programme from a Cambridge professor. The accusation surfaced after students from the Chinese university had their visa applications rejected.

Students were due to take part in an event at Cambridge called the “Fifth Zhejiang University-Cambridge University Graduate Joint Forum: Digital Economy and Global Innovation”. It was scheduled to begin on December 13th and to run for a week.

The programme was set to include seminars, lectures, and discussions about international business management, the digital economy, high-tech finance, and innovation in Cambridge.

However, Chinese students who were planning to attend the exchange had their visa applications denied after it was revealed that their invitations had been fabricated, allegedly by the staff member in charge of the programme.

One student affected by the incident told Chinese news portal Dutenews that, after seeking to verify the legitimacy of their invitation, the British Embassy discovered that the letter was fake.

“The embassy believed that our materials were forged,” they said. The British Embassy in Beijing has now confirmed that “the applicants were refused because false documentation was provided in their application”.

ZJU is ranked as the third best university in China, and has over 65,000 students enrolled. In 2022, a forum with the same name as this year’s one took place in Cambridge, organised by the two universities.

Following student complaints, ZJU’s school of economics reportedly filed police reports about the alleged visa fraud. In a statement issued on Tuesday (17/12), ZJU announced that it was launching an investigation into the incident and said it would “sternly punish” anyone found to have behaved illegally.