BBC World Disinformation Unit and Africa Eye
Recruitment brokers who rip-off overseas nationals making use of to work within the UK care sector have been uncovered by BBC secret filming.
One of many rogue brokers is a Nigerian physician who has labored for the NHS within the area of psychiatry.
The Dwelling Workplace has acknowledged the system is open to abuse, however the BBC World Service’s investigation exhibits the obvious ease with which these brokers can rip-off folks, keep away from detection, and proceed to revenue.
Our secret filming reveals brokers’ techniques, together with:
- Illegally promoting jobs in UK care firms
- Devising pretend payroll schemes to hide that some jobs don’t exist
- Shifting from care to different sectors, like building, that additionally face workers shortages
Reviews of immigration scams have elevated since a authorities visa scheme – initially designed to let overseas medical professionals work within the UK – was broadened in 2022 to incorporate care employees.
To use for the visa, candidates should first acquire a “Certificates of Sponsorship” (CoS) from a UK employer who’s licensed by the Dwelling Workplace. It’s the want for CoS paperwork that’s being exploited by rogue relocation brokers.
“The dimensions of exploitation beneath the Well being and Care Work visa is critical,” says Dora-Olivia Vicol, CEO of Work Rights Centre, a charity that helps migrants and deprived folks within the UK entry employment justice.
“I feel it has become a nationwide disaster.”
She says there may be “systemic threat inherent” within the sponsorship system, as a result of it “places the employer ready of unbelievable energy” and has “enabled this predatory market of middlemen to mushroom”.
The BBC despatched two undercover journalists to strategy relocation brokers working within the UK.
One met Dr Kelvin Alaneme, a Nigerian physician and founding father of the company, CareerEdu, based mostly in Harlow, Essex.
His web site states his enterprise is a “launchpad for world alternatives catering to younger Africans”, claiming to have 9,800 “blissful purchasers”.
Believing the BBC undercover journalist was nicely linked within the UK care sector, Dr Alaneme tried to recruit her to grow to be an agent for his enterprise, saying it might be very profitable.
“Simply get me care properties. I could make you a millionaire,” he mentioned.
As a possible enterprise accomplice, our journalist was then given unprecedented perception into how immigration scams by brokers like Dr Alaneme truly work. Dr Alaneme mentioned he would pay £2,000 ($2,600) for every care house emptiness she was capable of procure, and supplied £500 ($650) fee on high.
He then mentioned he would promote the vacancies to candidates again in Nigeria.
Charging candidates for a job is prohibited within the UK.
“They [the candidates] should not alleged to be paying as a result of it is free. It must be free,” he mentioned, decreasing his voice.
“They’re paying as a result of they know it is most certainly the one means.”
The BBC started investigating him following a sequence of on-line complaints about his relocation providers.
Reward – from south-east Nigeria and in his mid 30s – was a type of who complained, claiming he paid Dr Alaneme greater than £10,000 ($13,000) for a job within the UK. He says he was informed he was going to be working with a care firm known as Effectivity for Care, based mostly in Clacton-on-Sea. It was solely when he arrived that he realised the job did not exist.
“If I had identified there was no job, I’d haven’t come right here,” he says. “At the least again house in Nigeria, when you go broke, I can discover my sister or my dad and mom and go and eat free meals. It isn’t the identical right here. You’ll go hungry.”
Reward says he messaged Effectivity for Care and Dr Alaneme for months, asking when he may begin working. Regardless of guarantees of help from Dr Alaneme, the job by no means materialised. Virtually a yr later, he discovered a place with one other care supplier keen to sponsor him to stay within the UK.
Our investigation discovered that Effectivity for Care employed – on common – 16 folks in 2022, and 152 in 2023. But a letter despatched from the Dwelling Workplace to the corporate dated Could 2023 – and seen by the BBC – confirmed it had issued 1,234 Certificates of Sponsorship to overseas employees between March 2022 and Could 2023.
Effectivity for Care’s sponsorship licence was revoked in July 2023. The care firm can not recruit from overseas, however continues to function.
It informed the BBC it strongly refutes the allegation it colluded with Dr Alaneme. It mentioned it believed it lawfully recruited workers from Nigeria and different nations. It has challenged the Dwelling Workplace’s revocation of its sponsorship licence, it mentioned, and the matter is now in court docket.
In one other secretly filmed assembly, Dr Alaneme shared an much more refined rip-off involving sponsorship paperwork for jobs that didn’t exist.
He mentioned the “benefit” of getting a CoS that’s unconnected to a job “is which you could select any metropolis you need”.
“You’ll be able to go to Glasgow. You’ll be able to keep in London. You’ll be able to dwell wherever,” he informed us.
This isn’t true. If a migrant arrives within the UK on a Well being and Care Work visa and doesn’t work within the position they’ve been assigned, their visa could possibly be cancelled they usually threat being deported.
Within the secret filming, Dr Alaneme additionally described learn how to arrange a pretend payroll system to masks the actual fact the roles should not actual.
“That [a money trail] is what the federal government must see,” he mentioned.
Dr Alaneme informed the BBC he strenuously denied providers supplied by CareerEdu had been a rip-off or that it acted as a recruitment company or supplied jobs for money. He mentioned his firm solely supplied respectable providers, including that the cash Reward gave him was handed on to a recruitment agent for Reward’s transport, lodging and coaching. He mentioned he supplied to assist Reward discover one other employer freed from cost.
The BBC additionally carried out undercover filming with one other UK-based recruitment agent, Nana Akwasi Agyemang-Prempeh, after a number of folks informed the BBC that they had collectively paid tens of hundreds of kilos for care employee positions for his or her family and friends that, it transpired, didn’t exist.
They mentioned a number of the Certificates of Sponsorship Mr Agyemang-Prempeh gave them had turned out to be fakes – replicas of actual CoS issued by care firms.
We found Mr Agyemang-Prempeh had then begun providing CoS for UK jobs in building – one other trade that permits employers to recruit overseas employees. He was capable of arrange his personal building firm and acquire a sponsorship licence from the Dwelling Workplace.
Our journalist, posing as a UK-based Ugandan businessman eager to deliver Ugandan building employees over to affix him, requested Mr Agyemang-Prempeh if this was doable.
He replied it was – for the value of £42,000 ($54,000) for 3 folks.
Mr Agyemang-Prempeh informed us he had moved into building as a result of guidelines are being “tightened” within the care sector – and claimed brokers had been eyeing different industries.
“Folks are actually diverting to IT,” Mr Agyemang-Prempeh informed the undercover journalist.
Greater than 470 licences within the UK care sector had been revoked by the federal government between July 2022 and December 2024. These licensed sponsors had been liable for the recruitment of greater than 39,000 medical professionals and care employees from October 2020.
Mr Agyemang-Prempeh later requested for a downpayment for the Certificates of Sponsorship, which the BBC didn’t make.
The Dwelling Workplace has now revoked his sponsorship licence. Mr Agyemang-Prempeh’s defence, when challenged by the BBC, was that he had himself been duped by different brokers and didn’t realise he was promoting pretend CoS paperwork.
In an announcement to the BBC, the Dwelling Workplace mentioned it has “sturdy new motion towards shameless employers who abuse the visa system” and can “ban companies who flout UK employment legal guidelines from sponsoring abroad employees”.
BBC investigations have beforehand uncovered comparable visa scams focusing on folks in Kerala, India, and worldwide college students dwelling within the UK who wish to work within the care sector.
In November 2024, the federal government introduced a clampdown on “rogue” employers hiring employees from abroad. Moreover, from 9 April, care suppliers in England will likely be required to prioritise recruiting worldwide care employees already within the UK earlier than recruiting from abroad.
Investigation workforce: Olaronke Alo, Chiagozie Nwonwu, Sucheera Maguire, Nyasha Michelle, and Chiara Francavilla