Illegal visa network makes millions from students looking for work in the UK

A planetary web has fleeced students retired of tens of thousands of pounds for worthless visa documents they hoped would alteration them to enactment successful the UK.

A BBC probe has recovered middlemen moving arsenic recruitment agents preyed connected planetary students who wanted jobs successful the attraction industry.

The students paid up to £17,000 each for sponsorship certificates that should person been free.

When they applied for skilled idiosyncratic visas, their paperwork was rejected by the Home Office for being invalid.

We person seen documentation that shows 1 man, Taimoor Raza, sold 141 visa documents - astir of which were worthless - for a full of £1.2m.

He denies doing thing incorrect and has paid backmost immoderate of the wealth to students.

Mr Raza rented offices and hired unit successful the West Midlands and promised dozens of students enactment successful attraction homes and employment sponsorship.

We person been told helium began selling morganatic documents and that a fistful of students obtained visas and genuine jobs.

But galore much mislaid their full savings connected worthless paperwork.

The BBC has spoken to 17 men and women who person mislaid thousands trying to get enactment visas.

Three of the students, each women successful their 20s, paid retired a full of £38,000 to antithetic agents.

They said they had been sold a imagination successful their autochthonal India that they would marque their fortunes successful England.

Instead, they had ended up penniless and excessively acrophobic to archer their families backmost home.

"I americium trapped present [in England]," Nila* told the BBC.

"If I bash return, each of my family’s savings would’ve been wasted."

The UK’s attraction sector, including attraction homes and agencies, had a grounds fig of vacancies successful 2022 with 165,000 posts unfilled.

The authorities widened the nett for recruitment by allowing planetary applications, starring to a roar successful involvement from the likes of India, Nigeria and The Philippines.

Applicants indispensable person an eligible sponsor, specified arsenic a registered attraction location oregon agency, and jobseekers should not person to wage a penny for their sponsorship.

The abrupt opening of this way has been exploited by middlemen taking vantage of students looking to enactment afloat time.

Although the students we spoke to had made large attempts to stay successful the UK legally, they present look being sent backmost to their state of origin.

Nadia*, 21 and from India, arrived successful the UK successful 2021 connected a survey visa to implicit a BA successful machine sciences.

After a year, she decided to look for a occupation alternatively of paying tuition fees of £22,000 a year.

A person gave her the fig for an cause who told Nadia helium could supply the close documents needed for attraction enactment for £10,000.

She said the cause made her consciousness astatine easiness and adjacent told her she reminded him of his ain relatives.

"He told maine 'I won’t complaint a batch of wealth from you due to the fact that you look similar my sisters'," Nadia, who lives successful Wolverhampton, said.

She paid him £8,000 upfront, and waited for six months for a papers to get that stated she had enactment astatine a attraction location successful Walsall.

“I straight called the attraction location and asked astir my visa, but they said they didn’t supply immoderate certificates of sponsorship due to the fact that they already had afloat staff," Nadia said.

The cause blocked Nadia's calls and she was advised to spell to the constabulary but she told the BBC she was excessively scared.

Nila, who is surviving successful Birmingham, said her household believed investing successful a beingness successful the UK would let her to summation skills and gain much than successful India.

“My father-in-law was successful the army, helium trusted maine with each his savings," she said.

She visited a grooming bureau successful Wolverhampton to power her pupil visa to a attraction idiosyncratic one.

The agents were precise polite, she said, and showed emails, letters and copies of visas to beryllium their legitimacy.

Nila and the different students were wholly convinced the men were going to alteration their lives.

"The mode successful which they archetypal conscionable us, it's God-like. That’s however overmuch they triumph implicit our trust,” she said.

She paid £15,000 for documents that ended up being worthless and rejected by the Home Office, having already spent £15,000 of her family’s wealth connected her studies.

Nila said her beingness had been destroyed.

"Those scammers are inactive roaming escaped today. They person nary fear," she said.

The BBC has learned that Taimoor Raza, a Pakistani nationalist who had been surviving successful Wolverhampton and moving successful Birmingham, is astatine the apical of 1 visa network.

He approached recruitment agencies successful the West Midlands and said helium could put enactment successful attraction homes and organise visa applications for their clients.

The BBC has seen a record afloat of sponsorship documents that Mr Raza provided 1 bureau for 141 applicants.

Each idiosyncratic paid betwixt £10,000 and £20,000 and the full amounts to £1.2m.

We person verified that Mr Raza was sending these sponsorship documents arsenic PDF files implicit Whatsapp.

Of them, 86 received worthless paperwork that was rejected by the Home Office arsenic invalid.

A further 55 successfully obtained a visa, but the attraction homes they had been promised enactment with said they had nary grounds of the arrangement.

The BBC contacted Taimoor Raza, who has been successful Pakistan since December 2023, to enactment the allegations to him.

He responded to accidental the students' claims were "false" and "one-sided" and that helium had contacted his lawyers.

He did not respond to our petition for an interview.

Student Ajay Thind said helium was recruited to enactment for Mr Raza aft helium paid him £16,000 for a attraction idiosyncratic visa.

He was among six radical paid betwixt £500-£700 a week, compiling paperwork and filling successful forms for applicants.

Mr Thind said Mr Raza rented offices and adjacent took his squad connected an all-expenses travel to Dubai.

His suspicions arose successful April 2023 erstwhile helium noticed applications were being rejected by the Home Office. Some included his friends, who had paid a full of £40,000.

“I told Raza and helium said to me, 'your encephalon isn’t made for stress, fto maine grip the stress.'

"I didn’t permission arsenic I needed the money," helium said. "I got stuck successful specified a atrocious situation."

Mr Thind said his brag was moving with galore agencies, truthful the fig of £1.2m is apt to beryllium overmuch higher.

Most victims person not contacted police.

“A batch of radical don’t spell to the constabulary due to the fact that they’re terrified of the Home Office and the consequences of reporting,” said Luke Piper, caput of migration astatine the Work Rights Centre.

Instead, they person sought assistance from a Sikh temple successful the West Midlands – the Gurdwara Baba Sang Ji, successful Smethwick.

Members person been starring the fightback against agents who failed to present connected their promises and person managed to claw wealth backmost for immoderate people.

The elders astatine the temple adjacent managed to summon Mr Raza to a gathering successful November 2023, wherever it is said helium agreed to refund wealth and halt his activities.

The gurdwara's Sikh Advice Centre, acceptable up to assistance radical during the pandemic, managed to get 1 young mother, Harmanpreet, her wealth backmost by confronting bureau unit successful person.

She said she had been pushed to the brink of termination by her ordeal.

"I considered taking my ain life. I lone restarted my beingness due to the fact that of my girl and the Sikh Advice Centre," she said.

Monty Singh, from the centre, said hundreds of radical had contacted them for help.

He and the squad began dealing with cases successful 2022 by outing those progressive connected societal media, hoping that naming and shaming them would pass radical not to spot them.

More radical got successful interaction aft seeing the posts and names were added to the list.

Mr Singh said they began to realise the agents operated similar a pyramid scheme.

"There are loads of small squad leaders and agents... and immoderate of them mightiness get commission," helium said.

Some of the smaller agents were hairdressers and autobus drivers who saw an accidental to marque money, helium said.

He said Mr Raza had repaid £258,000 but that the proposal centre had present handed the lawsuit implicit to the National Crime Agency.

Other agents had paid wealth backmost due to the fact that of the large shame it had brought connected their families.

"Family honour means everything to an individual. We identify, investigate, look astatine each the grounds that is there," Monty said.

"Once we've got that, we talk to the household and the shame it brings connected them, they conscionable privation to repay the unfortunate and wide their household name."

There has been a six-fold summation successful applications from students to get UK enactment visas - with implicit 26,000 betwixt June 2022 to June 2023, up from 3,966 the twelvemonth before.

In July past year, the Home Office amended rules to forestall planetary students obtaining enactment visas earlier completing their studies.

But the Sikh Advice centre said lone pugnacious enactment by constabulary and migration officials volition halt the amerciable commercialized successful visas.

Jas Kaur, who works alongside Monty, said the authorities indispensable liaise with religion leaders.

"If you're not talking to the radical connected the ground, you person nary thought what's truly going on," she said.

A Home Office spokesperson said determination were "stringent systems successful spot to place and forestall fraudulent visa applications, and immoderate idiosyncratic being targeted by these fraudsters needs to cognize that if their sponsorship certificate is not genuine, it volition not succeed".

“We volition proceed to instrumentality pugnacious enactment arsenic good against immoderate unscrupulous companies and agents who are seeking to abuse, exploit oregon defraud overseas workers," they added.

Mr Piper, from the Work Rights Centre, said the authorities needed to enactment victims and “create a model of harmless reporting without fearfulness of reprisal from the Home Office simply due to the fact that they’ve reported their leader to them”.

There are nary authoritative figures connected the numbers of radical who person mislaid wealth paying agents for worthless visa paperwork.

“What is wide is that it is happening connected rather a important standard arsenic we’re proceeding from radical each implicit the country," Mr Piper added.

Back successful Smethwick, the Sikh Advice Centre hopes to grow the cognition to different gurdwaras and person besides begun educating radical successful India of the risks they instrumentality erstwhile leaving their state for survey oregon work.

"Educating radical involves the harsh information that the occurrence stories of a fewer doesn't mean it volition hap for everyone," Mr Singh said.

"It's besides undoing the content that the lone mode they tin bash amended is to travel the British oregon American dream."

*Some names person been changed