BBC
A global network has fleeced students out of tens of thousands of pounds for worthless visa documents they hoped would enable them to work in the UK.
A BBC investigation has found middlemen working as recruitment agents preyed on international students who wanted jobs in the care industry.
The students paid up to £17,000 each for sponsorship certificates that should have been free.
When they applied for skilled worker visas, their paperwork was rejected by the Home Office for being invalid.
We have seen documentation that shows one man, Taimoor Raza, sold 141 visa documents – most of which were worthless – for a total of £1.2m.
He denies doing anything wrong and has paid back some of the money to students.
Mr Raza rented offices and hired staff in the West Midlands and promised dozens of students work in care homes and employment sponsorship.
We have been told he began selling legitimate documents and that a handful of students obtained visas and genuine jobs.
But many more lost their entire savings on worthless paperwork.
‘I’m trapped here’
The BBC has spoken to 17 men and women who have lost thousands trying to obtain work visas.
Three of the students, all women in their 20s, paid out a total of £38,000 to different agents.
They said they had been sold a dream in their native India that they would make their fortunes in England.
Instead, they had ended up penniless and too afraid to tell their families back home.
“I am trapped here [in England],” Nila* told the BBC.
“If I do return, all of my family’s savings would’ve been wasted.”
The UK’s care sector, including care homes and agencies, had a record number of vacancies in 2022 with 165,000 posts unfilled.
The government widened the net for recruitment by allowing international applications, leading to a boom in interest from the likes of India, Nigeria and The Philippines.
Applicants must have an eligible sponsor, such as a registered care home or agency, and jobseekers should not have to pay a penny for their sponsorship.
The sudden opening of this route has been exploited by middlemen taking advantage of students looking to work full time.
Although the students we spoke to had made great attempts to remain in the UK legally, they now face being sent back to their country of origin.
Victim’s calls blocked
Nadia*, 21 and from India, arrived in the UK in 2021 on a study visa to complete a BA in computer sciences.
After a year, she decided to look for a job instead of paying tuition fees of £22,000 a year.
A friend gave her the number for an agent who told Nadia he could provide the correct documents needed for care work for £10,000.
She said the agent made her feel at ease and even told her she reminded him of his own relatives.
“He told me ‘I won’t charge a lot of money from you because you look like my sisters’,” Nadia, who lives in Wolverhampton, said.
She paid him £8,000 upfront, and waited for six months for a document to arrive that stated she had work at a care home in Walsall.
“I directly called the care home and asked about my visa, but they said they didn’t provide any certificates of sponsorship because they already had full staff,” Nadia said.
The agent blocked Nadia’s calls and she was advised to go to the police but she told the BBC she was too scared.
Nila, who is living in Birmingham, said her family believed investing in a life in the UK would allow her to gain skills and earn more than in India.
“My father-in-law was in the army, he trusted me with all his savings,” she said.
She visited a training agency in Wolverhampton to switch her student visa to a care worker one.
The agents were very polite, she said, and showed emails, letters and copies of visas to prove their legitimacy.
Nila and the other students were totally convinced the men were going to change their lives.
“The way in which they first meet us, it’s God-like. That’s how much they win over 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 money on her studies.
Nila said her life had been destroyed.
“Those scammers are still roaming free today. They have no fear,” she said.
86 students lost thousands
The BBC has learned that Taimoor Raza, a Pakistani national who had been living in Wolverhampton and working in Birmingham, is at the top of one visa network.
He approached recruitment agencies in the West Midlands and said he could arrange work in care homes and organise visa applications for their clients.
The BBC has seen a file full of sponsorship documents that Mr Raza provided one agency for 141 applicants.
Each person paid between £10,000 and £20,000 and the total amounts to £1.2m.
We have verified that Mr Raza was sending these sponsorship documents as PDF files over Whatsapp.
Of them, 86 received worthless paperwork that was rejected by the Home Office as invalid.
A further 55 successfully obtained a visa, but the care homes they had been promised work with said they had no record of the arrangement.
The BBC contacted Taimoor Raza, who has been in Pakistan since December 2023, to put the allegations to him.
He responded to say the students’ claims were “false” and “one-sided” and that he had contacted his lawyers.
He did not respond to our request for an interview.
Student Ajay Thind said he was recruited to work for Mr Raza after he paid him £16,000 for a care worker visa.
He was among six people paid between £500-£700 a week, compiling paperwork and filling in forms for applicants.
Mr Thind said Mr Raza rented offices and even took his team on an all-expenses trip to Dubai.
His suspicions arose in April 2023 when he noticed applications were being rejected by the Home Office. Some included his friends, who had paid a total of £40,000.
“I told Raza and he said to me, ‘your brain isn’t made for stress, let me handle the stress.’
“I didn’t leave as I needed the money,” he said. “I got stuck in such a bad situation.”
Mr Thind said his boss was working with numerous agencies, so the figure of £1.2m is likely to be much higher.
Most victims have not contacted police.
“A lot of people don’t go to the police because they’re terrified of the Home Office and the consequences of reporting,” said Luke Piper, head of immigration at the Work Rights Centre.
Instead, they have sought help from a Sikh temple in the West Midlands – the Gurdwara Baba Sang Ji, in Smethwick.
Members have been leading the fightback against agents who failed to deliver on their promises and have managed to claw money back for some people.
The elders at the temple even managed to summon Mr Raza to a meeting in November 2023, where it is said he agreed to refund money and stop his activities.
