THE commonwealth has successfully prosecuted the first individual associated with Australia's dodgy college affair, a bogus cooking student.

Shao Wen Yin, 27, from Greenacre in Sydney's west, pleaded guilty at Downing Centre District Court to two counts of presenting fake or forged documents under the Migration Act, and was sentenced to 100 hours of community service for each offence.

Yin, who is a temporary resident, is believed to be just one of hundreds of international students who paid between $10,000 and $30,000 for fake diplomas from the Sydney International Business College to help with their visa applications.

In June 2007, immigration officials and Australian Federal Police raided the premises and seized documents, among them Yin's fake student file.

Yin's barrister, John Overall, said his client's offences should be viewed in the light of the other people involved: SICB director Philip Lobo, the former chief executive of the Australian College of Education and Training, Sanjay Datta, and migration agent David Yu, all of whom have fled Australia.

Magistrate Mark Buscombe said the charges were "clearly serious" as Yin had "taken advantage of a criminal enterprise" to pave his way into the country.

The court heard Yu (aka David Yao and Wei Bing Yao) had a "flourishing practice" creating false education documents for students who wanted to fast-track the immigration process.

The conviction - and a further four arrest warrants associated with the former SICB - comes almost three years after The Australian exposed SICB as the first example of the visa-for-fees rort in November 2007.

A Department of Immigration and Citizenship spokesman described Yin's prosecution as "the first criminal conviction in Australia" arising from an investigation into large-scale fraud allegedly involving a college, and "large numbers" of students using false qualifications to obtain permanent residence.

Last week's conviction sent a warning that Immigration would "prosecute people at all levels of organised scams", including those who run colleges, unregistered migration agents or those gaining advantage from these practices, the spokesman said.

But Monash overseas student security expert Chris Nyland said the prosecution highlighted the commonwealth's failure to establish the legal infrastructure to manage the industry effectively.

"Hopefully, this case will prove to be more than mere tokenism to help generate the impression that we have moved beyond our previous 'anything goes' attitude," Professor Nyland said.

Despite a federal crackdown on state-regulated colleges, Think Education Group academic director George Brown said vocational qualifications remained virtually impossible to verify, as there was no national database.