A star high school player in Canada has been arrested on accusations that he is actually a 30-year old man.
Jonathan Nicola, a refugee from South Sudan, was arrested at the Canadian border last week. He is currently being held on charges of “contravening the Immigration Refugee Protection Act,” according to a report from the Windsor-Star.
“There’s really not a whole lot to say,” a spokesman for the school district told the Windsor-Star. “Because of the fact this is a matter that’s still outstanding before the federal authorities, obviously we can’t really comment on it. Beyond that there’s not a whole lot to say.”
When Nicola first arrived in the country, he told officials that he had just turned 17 years old. He was in Canada on a student-visa, attending Catholic Central High School as a 11th-grader. The 6-foot-9 Nicola was even leaving with his high school team’s head coach.
This is not the first time this has happened recently. Back in 2011, a basketball player in Texas who went by the name Jerry Joseph and was posing as an orphan from Haiti was discovered to be Guerdwich Montimere, a 22-year old from Florida. He was discovered at an AAU tournament by his former coaches, and eventually spent two years in prison in part because he had a sexual relationship with a girl who was 15 years old at the time. In 2013 in Tennessee, a 22-year old man posed as an 18-year old high school transfer and eventually played one season of basketball.