Popular UK-based Nigerian doctor Kelvin Alaneme busted by BBC for CoS scam
A BBC research has exposed a considerable immigration rip-off concentrated on overseas nationals searching for employment withinside the UK care quarter , with recruitment retailers , which include a Nigerian health practitioner , uncovered for exploiting susceptible individuals.
The research found out that those retailers had been illegally promoting non-existent jobs and developing faux payroll structures to hide their fraudulent activities, prompting challenge from authorities.
Dr Kelvin Alaneme, a Nigerian health practitioner and founding father of CareerEdu, an business enterprise primarily based totally in Essex, became on the centre of the rip-off . The BBC’s undercover journalists, posing as capacity enterprise partners, had been supplied perception into how those scams worked. Dr Alaneme claimed that recruiting care houses ought to make retailers rich, providing a £2,000 ($2,600) fee for every activity emptiness they may procure, plus a £500 ($650) commission. He then defined how those vacancies had been bought to applicants in Nigeria, charging them for positions that did now no longer exist.
During a mystery meeting, Dr Alaneme said, “Just get me care houses . I could make you a millionaire,” and later admitted that applicants had been purchasing jobs regardless of it being unlawful withinside the UK. “They aren’t prepurported to be paying due to the fact it’s unfastened . It need to be unfastened ,” he said, acknowledging the exploitation however affirming that applicants felt pressured to pay because of the shortage of valid opportunities.
One of the victims, Praise, a person from southeastern Nigeria, paid Dr Alaneme over £10,000 ($13,000) for a intended activity withinside the UK with a care organization known as Efficiency for Care. Upon arriving withinside the UK, Praise observed the activity became a fabrication. “If I had recognised there has been no activity , I could have now no longer come here,” Praise lamented. “At least lower back domestic in Nigeria, in case you move broke, I can discover my sister or my mother and father and move and consume unfastened food. It’s now no longer the equal here. You will move hungry.”
The BBC’s research additionally found out that Efficiency for Care, the organization Praise became advised he could paintings for, had issued over 1, two hundred Certificates of Sponsorship (CoS) to overseas employees among March 2022 and May 2023, regardless of handiest using sixteen human beings in 2022 and 152 in 2023. The organization ’s sponsorship licence became revoked in 2023, aleven though it keeps to operate. Efficiency for Care denied any collusion with Dr Alaneme and said that it believed its recruitment method became lawful. It has due to the fact that challenged the Home Office’s selection to revoke its licence in court.
Further, the research uncovered extra state-of-the-art scams, which include faux sponsorship files for jobs that did now no longer exist. Dr Alaneme claimed that CoS files now no longer connected to actual jobs allowed migrants to select their region withinside the UK, even though that is false. Migrants are required to paintings withinside the roles assigned to them to keep their visas, and failure to accomplish that can cause deportation. Dr Alaneme additionally defined how faux payroll structures had been created to cowl up the dearth of real employment, saying, “That [a money trail] is what the authorities wishes to see.”
The BBC additionally investigated every other recruitment agent, Nana Akwasi Agyemang-Prempeh, who supplied faux CoS for jobs withinside the creation quarter after policies had been tightened withinside the care industry. Agyemang-Prempeh allegedly installation his very own creation organization and received a sponsorship licence from the Home Office to facilitate the rip-off , charging up to £42,000 ($54,000) for 3 employees . The BBC’s undercover journalist, posing as a businessman trying to recruit creation employees from Uganda, became advised that this association might be made for a price.
The Home Office revoked Agyemang-Prempeh’s sponsorship licence after the research . The Home Office issued a statement, pledging to take “ strong new movement in opposition to shameless employers who abuse the visa system” and to “ban organizations who flout UK employment legal guidelines from sponsoring distant places employees .”
Dora-Olivia Vicol, CEO of the Work Rights Centre, expressed alarm over the dimensions of the issue. “The scale of exploitation below the Health and Care Work visa is widespread ,” Vicol said. “It has was a country wide crisis.” Vicol talked about that the sponsorship system, which offers employers widespread power, has created a predatory marketplace for middlemen and has caused systemic exploitation.
The BBC’s research follows comparable reviews of visa scams concentrated on human beings in Kerala, India, and worldwide college students withinside the UK searching for care quarter jobs. As a response, in November 2024, the United Kingdom authorities introduced a crackdown on “rogue” employers, and from nine April 2025, care vendors in England might be required to prioritize recruiting worldwide care employees already withinside the UK earlier than searching for recruits from distant places .
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