‘I was scared but I couldn’t do anything’: the fake families smuggling into the UK | UK News

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“I have set her as your wife, so take her.”

As Ratha, a Sri Lankan rice farmer, was at the Colombo airport waiting for his ticket to the UK, the recruiter gestured to a woman he had never seen before.

“Unless you go to her, you’ll be in trouble and you won’t get your money back,” they told him.

Ratha had paid this man, who he believed to be a recruitment “agent”, £50,000 for passage to the UK, selling property that had been in his family for generations.

But being forced to pose as someone’s fake husband, he claims to have fallen victim to criminal gangs exploiting the UK’s skilled worker visa system.

While Rishi Sunak has made stopping small boat crossings in the English Channel one of his key priorities, Sky News may reveal allegations that a legal route is being used for people smuggling.

Criminal gangs are taking advantage of Britain’s need to fill jobs by using the skilled worker visa system as a route to move people into this country. Under the scheme, someone who has been offered a job in the UK can bring their dependents with them.

But Sky News has been made aware of multiple cases where the right to bring dependents on a skilled worker visa is being abused.

the high price

Ratha says he paid the money because he believed it would result in a job and eventually permanent residence in the UK.

The woman who posed as his wife – the owner of the work visa – has already disappeared.

He is staying with friends in Staffordshire because his relatives do not want him to be alone, fearing for his mental health.

He claims that he was fleeing persecution in Sri Lanka and was unaware that he would be traveling as a false dependent on someone else’s work visa before arriving at Colombo airport.

“I thought I was the only one traveling. At the airport entrance they told me to wait and then a woman arrived,” says Ratha.

“The agent said, ‘I’ve made her your wife, so take her.'”

At first, he refused to agree to the plan, but claims to have been threatened and refused a refund.

the false son

With Ratha came a 19-year-old, who he says posed as his son.

His name is Hinthujan and he now lives in Liverpool. He cuts a fearful and lonely figure.

His family spent his life savings on his trip to the UK in the hope that he could join his relatives in the city’s Sri Lankan community.

Hinthujan says he had no idea what was going on until he arrived at Colombo airport, where he was forced to partner with a fake father and mother.

Unable to speak a word of English, he is now an asylum seeker after the group was questioned and detained at Heathrow airport.

“There are many problems in Sri Lanka. It is not possible to stay there, that’s why we came,” he told Sky News through a translator.

“I was scared when [the agent] He told me: ‘If you say they are your mother and father, there will be no problem'”.

“I was scared but I couldn’t do anything”

When Ms A turned up for her flight from Sri Lanka to the UK, she says the people she paid £65,000 for a work visa gave her her permit, plane tickets and a 12-year-old boy.

“It was a shock,” she says. “It was all last minute. I was scared but I couldn’t do anything about it. They guaranteed me there would be no problem.”

After landing at Heathrow airport, the child was met by people Ms A did not recognize and was never seen again.

Ms A, who asked not to be named, said the visa was issued by the British High Commission in Sri Lanka.

“It was only after I got to the UK that I realized it had been a big mistake. I know I’ve been used.”

“The boy already knew he was coming to the country, but I didn’t.”

Documents

Ms A handed over the sum of money believing that the agents would find her work in the UK and that she did not need to speak English.

A care company offered her a job and then the Home Office provided her with a Certificate of Sponsorship which enabled her to obtain the visa. But it is a basic requirement for people coming to work in the UK as carers on English-speaking skilled worker visas.

Ms. A cannot read, write or speak English and has no grades. But a fake certificate used by the gang to apply for a job indicates that she has a “very good pass” on an English test.

Sky News obtained the fake documents submitted to the care agency with his job application. They include a nursing diploma and fake certificates in biology, physics and chemistry.

His fake resume boasts of having spent seven years “providing direct nursing care to patients in a busy hospital ward setting” and two years providing care for patients in a nursing home.

He says he is skilled in safe patient handling and first aid.

None of this is true.

What are Skilled Worker Visas and how many are issued each year?

In February 2022, the government changed the rules for those who want to come to the UK to work, making it easier for foreigners to apply.

It expanded the Shortage Occupations List and removed the requirement to prove that UK residents could not perform any of the listed roles. Care support worker is the lowest-skilled job on this expanded list of shortage occupations.

The Migration Advisory Council’s annual report recommended the change, as well as setting a minimum wage of £20,480 per year.

The government agreed with this recommendation at the time “to help ensure near-term sustainability as social care recovers from the pandemic.”

Last year almost 150,000 people came to the UK on skilled worker visas.

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‘People sell everything and are left with nothing’

Zeena Luchowa, from the Law Society’s Immigration Committee, said: “It is extremely alarming and worrying that we have a system that is not detecting exploitation at this level and there needs to be some way for the head office to check their systems to see what it’s not working here.”

Sky News contacted the company Ms A thought she was going to work for. She said they had no idea that the documents used by recruiters in Sri Lanka for Ms A’s application were fake.

Care England represents the largest number of independent adult social care providers in the UK. He confirmed that there is no “specific requirement” for any healthcare-related qualification to come to this country as a caregiver. But it is a requirement to speak, read, write and understand English at least at an intermediate level.

Ms A’s legal adviser said: “The UK government needs people. But criminal gangs use this legal system of work permits for their own benefit to make a lot of money.”

Meanwhile, he said, people from other countries “sell their jewelry and property, give it to criminal gangs, and they’re left with nothing. They come here and they can’t work, they can’t rent, and they’re left on the streets.”

A Home Office spokesman said: “We are actively investigating the claims made.

“Abuse of our immigration system will not be tolerated. Anyone found to have used false documents, misrepresented their personal circumstances or otherwise deceived will have their application denied and will be barred from filing any further applications for up to 10 years.” .

The Home Office is now reviewing its processes to try to prevent further abuse of the skilled worker visa system.

‘I sold everything three generations of my family worked for’

Vinothan is another Sri Lankan who has added to the backlog of asylum seekers in the UK. The job he thought he was here to do didn’t work out.

Vinothan, his wife, and their two young children now live in a friend’s spare room. He claims the family cannot return to Sri Lanka because they have been threatened by criminal gangs who got their UK work visa.

He paid £26,000 to people in Sri Lanka for a full-time job offer to work as a caretaker for a British company, not the same one Ms A applied for.

On induction day, Vinothan says he got a uniform but no paid job. He claims that he was not told before leaving Sri Lanka that he would have to undergo unpaid training for an unspecified period of time.

As he now has a dispute with the company, his Certificate of Sponsorship to work in the UK has been withdrawn.

Wiping away tears, she explains that the money was her family’s life savings, after they sold everything, including land and jewelry.

“£26,000 is a very large amount for us Sri Lankans. My grandfather’s and grandmother’s jewelery and three generations earned that. Now I have nothing. It’s all gone. [The criminal gangs in Sri Lanka] they have cheated me.

“How can I get that back?”

Reporting by Lisa Holland and Nick Stylianou
Megan Baynes Production
Edited by Serena Kutchinsky