Tamasin Ford
BBC World Disinformation Unit and Africa Eye
Undercover pictures displays Dr Kelvin Alaneme explaining how he sells UK jobs to overseas nationals
Recruitment brokers who rip-off overseas nationals making use of to paintings in the United Kingdom care sector were uncovered by way of BBC secret filming.
One of the vital rogue brokers is a Nigerian physician who has labored for the NHS within the box of psychiatry.
The House Place of business has said the gadget is open to abuse, however the BBC International Provider’s investigation displays the obvious ease with which those brokers can rip-off folks, steer clear of detection, and proceed to benefit.
Our secret filming finds brokers’ ways, together with:
- Illegally promoting jobs in UK care corporations
- Devising faux payroll schemes to hide that some jobs don’t exist
- Moving from care to different sectors, like development, that still face body of workers shortages
Stories of immigration scams have greater since a central authority visa scheme – at first designed to let overseas clinical pros paintings in the United Kingdom – used to be broadened in 2022 to incorporate care staff.
To use for the visa, applicants will have to first download a “Certificates of Sponsorship” (CoS) from a UK employer who’s approved by way of the House Place of business. It’s the want for CoS paperwork this is being exploited by way of rogue relocation brokers.
“The dimensions of exploitation beneath the Well being and Care Paintings visa is important,” says Dora-Olivia Vicol, CEO of Paintings Rights Centre, a charity that is helping migrants and deprived folks in the United Kingdom get admission to employment justice.
“I feel it has was a countrywide disaster.”
She says there may be “systemic chance inherent” within the sponsorship gadget, as it “places the employer able of implausible energy” and has “enabled this predatory marketplace of middlemen to mushroom”.
The BBC despatched two undercover newshounds to method relocation brokers running in the United Kingdom.
One met Dr Kelvin Alaneme, a Nigerian physician and founding father of the company, CareerEdu, founded in Harlow, Essex.
His site states his trade is a “launchpad for world alternatives catering to younger Africans”, claiming to have 9,800 “satisfied shoppers”.
Believing the BBC undercover journalist used to be smartly attached in the United Kingdom care sector, Dr Alaneme attempted to recruit her to grow to be an agent for his trade, announcing it might be very profitable.
“Simply get me care houses. I will make you a millionaire,” he mentioned.
As a possible trade spouse, our journalist used to be then given unparalleled perception into how immigration scams by way of brokers like Dr Alaneme in fact paintings. Dr Alaneme mentioned he would pay £2,000 ($2,600) for each and every care house emptiness she used to be ready to obtain, and introduced £500 ($650) fee on best.
He then mentioned he would promote the vacancies to applicants again in Nigeria.
Charging applicants for a role is prohibited in the United Kingdom.
“They [the candidates] aren’t intended to be paying as a result of it is loose. It will have to be loose,” he mentioned, decreasing his voice.
“They’re paying as a result of they realize it’s perhaps the one means.”
The BBC started investigating him following a chain of on-line court cases about his relocation products and services.
Reward – from south-east Nigeria and in his mid 30s – used to be a type of who complained, claiming he paid Dr Alaneme greater than £10,000 ($13,000) for a role in the United Kingdom. He says he used to be instructed he used to be going to be running with a care corporate referred to as Potency for Care, founded in Clacton-on-Sea. It used to be best when he arrived that he realised the process did not exist.
Reward says he paid Dr Alaneme greater than £10,000 for a role in the United Kingdom
“If I had identified there used to be no process, I’d have now not come right here,” he says. “No less than again house in Nigeria, in case you pass broke, I will to find my sister or my folks and pass and devour loose meals. It isn’t the similar right here. You are going to pass hungry.”
Reward says he messaged Potency for Care and Dr Alaneme for months, asking when he may just get started running. In spite of guarantees of the aid of Dr Alaneme, the process by no means materialised. Nearly a yr later, he discovered a place with some other care supplier prepared to sponsor him to stay in the United Kingdom.
Our investigation discovered that Potency for Care hired – on moderate – 16 folks in 2022, and 152 in 2023. But a letter despatched from the House Place of business to the corporate dated Might 2023 – and noticed by way of the BBC – confirmed it had issued 1,234 Certificate of Sponsorship to overseas staff between March 2022 and Might 2023.
Potency for Care’s sponsorship licence used to be revoked in July 2023. The care corporate can not recruit from in a foreign country, however continues to function.
It instructed the BBC it strongly refutes the allegation it colluded with Dr Alaneme. It mentioned it believed it lawfully recruited body of workers from Nigeria and different nations. It has challenged the House Place of business’s revocation of its sponsorship licence, it mentioned, and the subject is now in courtroom.
In some 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 this is unconnected to a role “is that you’ll make a choice any town you wish to have”.
“You’ll pass to Glasgow. You’ll keep in London. You’ll reside anyplace,” he instructed us.
This isn’t true. If a migrant arrives in the United Kingdom on a Well being and Care Paintings visa and does now not paintings within the position they have got been assigned, their visa may well be cancelled they usually chance being deported.
In the name of the game filming, Dr Alaneme additionally described the right way to arrange a faux payroll gadget to masks the truth the roles aren’t actual.
“That [a money trail] is what the federal government wishes to peer,” he mentioned.
Dr Alaneme instructed the BBC he strenuously denied products and services introduced by way of CareerEdu have been a rip-off or that it acted as a recruitment company or equipped jobs for money. He mentioned his corporate best introduced official products and services, including that the cash Reward gave him used to be handed directly to a recruitment agent for Reward’s delivery, lodging and coaching. He mentioned he introduced to lend a hand Reward to find some other employer for free.
The BBC additionally performed undercover filming with some other UK-based recruitment agent, Nana Akwasi Agyemang-Prempeh, after a number of folks instructed the BBC that they had jointly 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 one of the most Certificate of Sponsorship Mr Agyemang-Prempeh gave them had grew to become out to be fakes – replicas of actual CoS issued by way of care corporations.
This lady says she offered family and friends to Mr Akwasi Agyemang-Prempeh, who jointly paid £35,000 for relocation programs they usually got CoS that grew to become out to be faux
We came upon Mr Agyemang-Prempeh had then begun providing CoS for UK jobs in development – some other trade that permits employers to recruit overseas staff. He used to be ready to arrange his personal development corporate and procure a sponsorship licence from the House Place of business.
Our journalist, posing as a UK-based Ugandan businessman in need of to deliver Ugandan development staff over to enroll in him, requested Mr Agyemang-Prempeh if this used to be conceivable.
He responded it used to be – for the cost of £42,000 ($54,000) for 3 folks.
Mr Agyemang-Prempeh instructed us he had moved into development as a result of laws are being “tightened” within the care sector – and claimed brokers have been eyeing different industries.
“Other folks at the moment are diverting to IT,” Mr Agyemang-Prempeh instructed the undercover journalist.
UK-based recruitment agent Nana Akwasi Agyemang-Prempeh has pivoted into the development sector
Greater than 470 licences in the United Kingdom care sector have been revoked by way of the federal government between July 2022 and December 2024. The ones approved sponsors have been answerable for the recruitment of greater than 39,000 clinical pros and care staff from October 2020.
Mr Agyemang-Prempeh later requested for a downpayment for the Certificate of Sponsorship, which the BBC didn’t make.
The House Place of business has now revoked his sponsorship licence. Mr Agyemang-Prempeh’s defence, when challenged by way of the BBC, used to be that he had himself been duped by way of different brokers and didn’t realise he used to be promoting faux CoS paperwork.
In a observation to the BBC, the House Place of business mentioned it has “tough new motion in opposition to shameless employers who abuse the visa gadget” and can “ban companies who flout UK employment rules from sponsoring out of the country staff”.
BBC investigations have up to now exposed an identical visa scams concentrated on folks in Kerala, India, and world scholars residing in the United Kingdom who wish to paintings within the care sector.
In November 2024, the federal government introduced a clampdown on “rogue” employers hiring staff from out of the country. Moreover, from 9 April, care suppliers in England might be required to prioritise recruiting world care staff already in the United Kingdom earlier than recruiting from out of the country.
Investigation group: Olaronke Alo, Chiagozie Nwonwu, Sucheera Maguire, Nyasha Michelle, and Chiara Francavilla
