A 30-year-old man has been arrested by Canadian border officials after he was found posing as a teenager and attending high school in the country. Jonathon Nicola, who is 6ft9 tall, spent 6 months at Catholic Central High School in Windsor, where he became a well-known basketball player.

Nicola was arrested on Wednesday (20 April) by Canada Border Services Agency and is being held at the South West Detention Centre. Nicola has previously said he is from South Sudan and that he was staying in Canada on a student visa.

A spokesperson for the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board told the Windsor Star "There's really not a whole lot to say... Generally I can tell you that we have a system of checks and balances in place that whenever international students are coming into any of our schools, we make sure that they have all of the necessary government documentation that they require in order to be in one of our schools." The spokesperson refused to comment on Nicola's specific case as it is an ongoing investigation.

Nicola was posing as a 17-year-old, Grade 11 student at the Windsor high school. When asked if the school board planned on alerting students and parents, the spokesperson said ""Again, generally speaking, if we felt at any time that there is any kind of threat to any of our students at any of our schools, then we would act appropriately."

Nicola had previously been interviewed by the Windsor Star for a feature story in which he claimed that he had left his war-torn homeland of South Sudan just three days before his 17th birthday, also saying that it had taken him six months to get a Canadian student visa.

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