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Invaders scamming us
Posted by Norman on 6/11/2025, 10:47 am
I watched this on the NEWS at 10 last night, and thought 'what a marvellous & dangerous job the TV researchers did'. These foriegn fraudsters are clever & so far have been able to fool our Government professionals looking out for fraudsters.. Have a read or better still try and see it on Catchup. Are these Turkish Barbers & Car Wash people involved in this?
Watch: BBC's Ed Thomas confronts Surchi of the Top Store mini-mart in Crewe
ByEd Thomas, UK editor, Patrick Clahane and Rebecca Wearn Published 4 November 2025 Updated 5 November 2025 A Kurdish crime network is enabling migrants to work illegally in mini-marts on High Streets the length of Britain, a BBC investigation can reveal. The fake company directors are paid to put their names to official paperwork, and have dozens of businesses listed on Companies House, but are not involved in running them. Two undercover reporters, themselves Kurdish, posed as asylum seekers and were told how easy it would be for them to take over and run a shop and make big profits selling illegal vapes and cigarettes. We have linked more than 100 mini-marts, barbershops and car washes, operating from Dundee to south Devon, to the crime network. But a financial crime investigator told the BBC he believes it goes much wider. The Home Office said it will investigate the BBC's findings. Reaction to BBC investigation - crime network 'pull factor' for illegal migrants, say MPs Published 21 hours ago Reacting to our investigation, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, said: "Illegal working and linked organised criminality creates an incentive for people to come here illegally. We will not stand for it." For the first time, we can reveal the inner workings of a criminal system that lets asylum seekers work in plain sight on UK High Streets, in mini-marts that mainly profit from illegal cigarettes and vapes. One man told us weekly takings from illicit tobacco at his shop could be "sometimes, up to £3,000". The men who facilitate it all - so-called "ghost directors" - each have dozens of businesses listed on Companies House but in many cases are not involved in running them. "The shop doesn't belong to me, it's just under my name," one of them told our undercover reporters. Many of the businesses are dissolved after about a year, and then re-opened with small changes to official paperwork. These businesses have "all the red flags" associated with organised criminality, a financial crime investigator told the BBC. During our investigation we found: An asylum seeker, who says his claim was rejected, trying to sell a shop to our undercover reporter for £18,000 A Kurdish Facebook group listing dozens of mini-marts, barbers, car washes and takeaways for sale "Ghost directors" charging illegal workers up to £300 per month to register mini-marts in their names Kurdish builders offering to build elaborate hiding spaces for illegal cigarettes and vapes that would fool sniffer dogs Asylum seekers, who said the Home Office had left them in legal limbo, working 14-hour shifts in mini-marts for as little as £4 per hour The two Kurdish journalists involved in our investigation know that tensions over immigration are high. They worry that such coverage of illegal activities within the Kurdish community could inflame hostilities. One of them is a former asylum seeker himself, and says "I wanted to play a role in uncovering these illegal activities [...] to say loudly that they don't represent us." Image caption, We found dozens of posts advertising mini-marts for sale across the UK Over four months, we monitored a Kurdish Facebook group where businesses across the UK were listed for sale. New adverts popped up every week. The reporters got in touch with three people who listed mini-marts for sale in Crewe, Hull and Liverpool. They said they were interested in running a mini-mart and trading illegal cigarettes. In Cheshire, the man running a Crewe mini-mart called Top Store said he would sell his shop to one reporter for £18,000 cash. The shopkeeper, who went by the name Surchi, assured our journalist that "you don't need anything" to own and run a mini-mart as an asylum seeker. Surchi told us he was himself a Kurdish asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK in 2022, but whose claim had been refused. When the BBC later confronted him, he told us he had paperwork proving his right to work. We asked if he could show us these documents, but he hasn't provided them. Asylum seekers generally do not have the right to work in the UK while their claim is being processed. Permission to work is only granted in limited circumstances and is subject to strict conditions. If asylum seekers are granted permission to work, they can only apply for eligible jobs on the Immigration Salary List. These do not include being a shop manager or shop assistant. Like our undercover reporters, Surchi told us he was from the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq, an area that straddles the borders of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. The region is often referred to as Kurdistan, but it is not an independent country. To avoid scrutiny by the authorities, Surchi said he paid someone called "Hadi" about £250 a month to be named on official papers. "That's his job and he probably has 40 to 50 shops under his name. There's no problem, he doesn't mind what you sell," he explained. This arrangement let Surchi go under the radar of immigration enforcement and sell whatever he liked. He said he had never paid any council tax and that our undercover reporter would not need to officially register the company. Immigration enforcement officers had only come by once in the past five years, when he was out, Surchi said during his sales patter. They never returned, he said. Image caption, Shopkeeper Surchi, right, talked to one of our undercover journalists about buying his mini-mart for £18,000 Trading Standards had raided the shop once, Surchi said, and he had been given a £200 fine for selling illegal cigarettes and vapes. Shop owners in the UK caught selling these items can be fined up to £10,000, but the profits that can be made from such products far outweigh the penalties. During a tour of the premises, Surchi took us outside to a so-called "stash car" where he said he hid the bulk of his stock until 17:00 each night, when Trading Standards officers finished for the day. He also told our reporter that "you could make a hiding spot" for the stock in the shop's basement - where he also showed how he tampered with the electricity meter to avoid paying utility bills. Surchi sold vapes to a group of teenagers while we were at the shop. "I have customers that are 12 years old, I don't have any problem with them," he said. Customers paid via a card machine into a bank account, he explained. Both of these belonged to his cousin, he said, who owned a mini-mart 15 miles away in Stoke. 'Fine craftsmanship' to fool sniffer dogs On Facebook, we discovered Kurdish builders willing to help us conceal illegal vapes and cigarettes. One of our reporters posted that he had bought a mini-mart in Manchester and was looking for "a specialist to build a space to hide cigarettes in the shop". Six builders got in touch. One sent us a video of what looked like a vending machine for illegal cigarettes hidden in a loft, which, at the press of a button, pinged packets down a chute to a concealed vent below. It was "fine craftsmanship" and cost £6,000, the builder said, claiming it was guaranteed to fool Trading Standards' sniffer dogs. 00:10 Media caption, Watch: Hidden cigarettes dispenser to avoid sniffer dog detection A network of ghost directors As we delved deeper into who officially owned these mini-marts, a network of ghost directors began to emerge. One name that kept coming up was Hadi Ahmad Ali - the Birmingham man to whom Surchi told us he was paying his monthly fee. We found Mr Ahmad Ali listed on Companies House as being from Iraq, in his 40s and a director of more than 50 other businesses - mini-marts, barbers and car washes. One of our reporters phoned him pretending to be an asylum seeker looking to buy the Crewe business to sell illegal cigarettes. Mr Ahmad Ali said the shop didn't belong to him but the lease was under his name. He confirmed he could keep it in his name for our undercover reporter, for a fee of between £250 and £300 a month. He also said he could try to provide a bank card for the shop. "I will give you a 50% guarantee that I can get you a bank card. I have another six to seven shops under my name in Hull and other places." Mr Ahmad Ali is still listed as an active director on several businesses on Companies House. We later learned that in October 2024 he had been disqualified from being a company officer for five years. Image caption, We linked Hadi Ahmad Ali (L) and Ismaeel Farzanda (R) to more than 70 businesses - including mini-marts, carwashes and barbershops The ban followed illegal cigarette sales at a shop in his name in Chorley, Lancashire - including to a 16-year-old. Separately, he pleaded guilty to his involvement in the sale of illegal cigarettes in Lincolnshire and was sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for 18 months. When later confronted by the BBC, Mr Ahmad Ali told us these mini-marts were nothing to do with him, and he had contacted Companies House to get his name removed from the businesses. A spokesperson for Companies House said it "now has greater powers to share information and support law enforcement investigations". "Where criminality is suspected, information and intelligence are shared with relevant partners." Our research linked Mr Ahmad Ali to another man, Ismael Ahmedi Farzanda, who we found was a ghost director and responsible for 25 mini-marts. Mr Farzanda's name came up because Companies House filings showed he had taken over as company director from Mr Ahmad Ali at seven mini-mart businesses. The pair also shared a co-directorship on one shop in Blackpool. One of our reporters managed to call Mr Farzanda, using the same cover story as he had told Mr Ahmad Ali. "I just put the shops under my name for people," said Mr Farzanda who, like Mr Ahmad Ali, was based in the West Midlands. He told us an "accountant" would take care of the paperwork, bank accounts and payments to him, and that he would have no problem with us selling illegal cigarettes. The only request he had was that if the undercover reporter was ever caught by the police, he should let him know immediately. "If you know you're caught, tell us so that for the interviews we can change the name and not get in trouble," he told our reporter. Mr Farzanda was fined £4,500 in August after one shop, registered in his name in Haslingden, Lancashire, was caught selling illegal vapes to a 14-year-old, according to local media reports. Seventeen shops registered under the names of Mr Ahmad Ali and Mr Farzanda have been raided since 2021 with illegal tobacco and vapes seized, Trading Standards sources confirmed. 'Endless battle': Fighting the crime gangs taking over the high street Published 31 July The sale of illegal cigarettes signals a deeper problem with UK high streets Published 3 July Police raid barbers and vape shops suspected of being fronts for crime gangs Published 10 April 03:05 Media caption, Confronting the "ghost directors" behind the network Despite being registered on official documents as being from Iran, Mr Farzanda told our undercover reporter he was actually from the Sharazoor district in neighbouring Iraq. Both our undercover reporters say they are aware of Kurdish people who have arrived in the UK on small boats and pretended to be Iranian, believing their asylum claims would have a better chance of success. When later presented with our evidence, Mr Farzanda denied all the allegations put to him by the BBC. When we looked into the official records attached to all the companies listed for Mr Ahmad Ali and Mr Farzanda, a suspicious pattern emerged. We found companies would be set up for a year, dissolved, and then set up again - each time with a slightly different spelling of the businesses' names. The men's names and birthdays would also be changed slightly. "Why are they doing that? It's most likely to evade tax and to dodge scrutiny by authorities," said financial crime investigator Graham Barrow, when we showed him our data. We have also confirmed details of two further ghost directors - with 40 companies listed between them. This UK-wide network of more than 100 company directorships in the names of just four individuals has "all the red flags that I would associate with organised criminal networks", said Mr Barrow. The network of businesses identified by the BBC could stretch even wider across the country, said Mr Barrow: "I certainly think it's hundreds. It could easily be bigger than that," he said. We visited more than a dozen mini-marts linked to this network of ghost directors. Everywhere we went, it was the same story - the shops were on rundown High Streets in some of the UK's most deprived areas, such as Blackpool, Bradford, Huddersfield and Hull. All but one of the shops sold counterfeit or smuggled cigarettes for about £4 per pack, instead of the average UK price of £16 for a pack of 20. Image caption, The sale of illegal cigarettes and vapes costs the country at least £2.2bn in lost revenue, according to the HMRC As well as Surchi's story in Crewe, our investigation revealed details of other Kurdish asylum seekers being employed illegally. A mini-mart worker in a Blackpool shop linked to one of the ghost directors told us he had left an asylum-seeker hotel in Liverpool to work 14-hour days at the shop. "In return I get £60 to £65 [per day]," he told us. "For three months, I worked for £50 [per day]." He was interviewed by the Home Office four months ago, he said, but hasn't heard anything since. The shop had been raided by Trading Standards three times, he told us - but he described that as "nothing". "Just give them any name and they will walk away," he explained, saying that whenever he was asked who he was, he would give the name of a famous Kurdish singer, Aziz Waisi. He did say he was worried by immigration enforcement, however. "They [Trading Standards] take the cigarettes and leave, but immigration makes you do fingerprints." We also found another Kurdish shopworker in a Salford shop registered under Ismaeel Farzanda's name, who said he was in limbo. "I've been here for six months and I still haven't claimed asylum," he said. The 42-year-old said he had first come to the UK as a teenager, before returning to Kurdistan. He said he returned to the UK this year and "they found my previous fingerprint records but nothing came of it". He said he was staying with friends. "Honestly, we're all struggling here and don't know what to do." The government says it has increased raids by 51% and this year raised the fines for businesses to £60,000 per person found working illegally. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood added that the government has "seized millions of pounds worth of unlicensed goods, banned dodgy directors and removed more than 35,000 people with no right to be in the UK." Additional reporting by Phill Edwards and Kirstie Brewer
It gets worse.....! A long read to boil your blood!
Posted by Mac C on 6/11/2025, 3:34 pm, in reply to "Try This Mac"
This from the Telegraph today
Migrants given asylum despite being accused of sexual offences, whistleblower claims Home Office worker says she was disciplined for rejecting the case of Afghan arrested for indecency
Migrants who have been accused of sex offences and other crimes are being granted asylum anyway, a whistleblower has claimed.
A senior caseworker has told The Telegraph that Home Office staff can approve claims from asylum seekers charged with crimes, as long as the offence for which they are being prosecuted does not merit a prison sentence of 12 months or more.
She cited a case where she said she was disciplined after refusing to approve an Afghan man’s application because he had been arrested several times for indecently exposing himself in a children’s play area.
The caseworker, who we are not naming to protect her identity, decided to speak out because she believed migrants were being allowed to remain in the UK when they should be deported.
She alleged caseworkers were under pressure to hit targets that incentivised them to approve more claims, and that applications from some countries, such as Eritrea and Sudan, were fast-tracked with less scrutiny than those from other nations.
She said even when asylum seekers’ applications were rejected by immigration tribunals, migrants could still make “further submissions”, often introducing new evidence such as psychiatric, sexual or religious claims, which delayed or prevented their deportation.
The whistleblower said: “It’s a carousel, just going round and round and round. We’re just browbeaten. That’s how we feel in asylum. We feel browbeaten because we read in the press that we’re rubbish. It’s not us. The ones at the coalface are doing the best we possibly can. We’re in a lose-lose [situation].”
Her comments come ahead of a major shake-up of the asylum system to be announced by Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary. She will toughen rules on criminality, curb the rights of asylum seekers to appeal against refusals on human rights grounds and overhaul the asylum appeals system.
Ms Mahmood, who has admitted the Home Office is “not yet fit for purpose”, has pledged to do whatever it takes to secure the UK’s borders and deport migrants with no right to stay in the UK. She plans to strip all migrants with convictions for sexual offences of the right to claim asylum.
A record 111,000 asylum applications were made to the UK in the year to June, up 14 per cent on the previous year. It has been partly fuelled by Channel small boat arrivals, with 37,000 crossing so far this year, up 17 per cent on the same point last year.
Concerns over crime by migrants have been brought to the fore by recent high-profile cases such as that of Ethiopian asylum seeker Hadush Kebatu, who sparked nationwide protests after he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl. He was deported last week after being released from jail by mistake.
The arrest of Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu The case of Hadush Kebatu sparked nationwide protests after he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl Credit: PA On Thursday, it emerged that a second migrant sex offender who should have been deported five years ago had been mistakenly released from prison.
Ibrahim Kaddour-Cherif, 24, an Algerian national, was released in error from HMP Wandsworth in south-west London a week last Wednesday but the Met police were only told he had been freed on Tuesday this week.
A manhunt for Kaddour-Cherif, a convicted sex offender and serial thief, has been launched by the Met Police which expressed frustration that he had a “six-day head start”. Cherif was identified by the Home Office more than five years ago as an illegal visa overstayer who should have been removed from the UK.
Home Office guidance states that where an asylum seeker faces a “pending prosecution”, a caseworker can decide an outstanding claim ahead of any criminal proceedings where the potential sentence does not meet certain thresholds.
These thresholds include a prison sentence of 12 months or more, a series of “minor” offences indicating they were a persistent offender, being a danger to national security or that their presence in the UK would be “not conducive to public good”.
Conservative peers this week tried to give ministers powers to remove any migrant from the UK if they were sentenced to any prison term of any length. Labour rejected the amendments because it said they would breach human rights and refugee conventions which dictate asylum seekers can only be deported for “serious” crimes.
‘I believed he posed a threat’ The whistleblower said caseworkers’ hands were tied by the rules, citing the Afghan arrested for indecent exposure. She said: “I said, ‘I’m refusing. He’s a wrong ’un’. And my senior manager said we can’t refuse an Afghan, we’ve got to grant. And I said I wouldn’t do it because a man who exposes himself in front of kids – well, where’s that going to end?
“And they said you’ve got to make the decision on the basis of the claim – he can’t be returned because he says he was politically active in Afghanistan against the Taliban.
“I was refusing that man because... I believed he posed a threat to children, but he was never going to receive a jail sentence for indecent exposure, he was just getting repeated warnings. So they gave his case to someone else who was prepared to say ‘yes’.”
She claimed caseworkers were under pressure to hit targets of six interviews or decisions a week on asylum claims, with limits of two and a half hours on interviews. This meant staff were less likely to meet their targets if they had to refuse claims because of the extra work to ensure the decision was legally watertight, she said.
She added: “More corners [are] being cut every day by everyone because it’s not feasible to do the numbers they want us to do, and do a good job.”
'One in, one out' migrant who sneaked back to Britain is deported… again Read more She said the Labour Government had tightened the rules on decision-making. Where before some asylum seekers from countries with high grant rates for claims were done solely on paper, the new system required staff to conduct half-hour interviews to confirm they were from the country they claimed to be, she said.
However, she said this was still not a full two-and-a-half hour asylum interview, and could be prepped for by applicants as it involved basic questions about a country’s geography, politics, laws and economy. She alleged there had been cases of Ethiopians claiming to be Eritreans to boost their chances of asylum.
She said rejected asylum seekers are able to make further submissions, often based on new information, even after their appeals have been rejected by an upper tribunal. They could change the basis of their asylum claim from risk of persecution due to their political beliefs to their sexuality or Christian faith, she claimed.
She said: “So for example, an Iranian will say, I’m claiming asylum because I was politically active against the regime. There’s no evidence to prove that, and we feel like it’s safe for them to return.
“Then they’ll lodge further submissions and say well I’m a Christian convert now. If there’s a live claim lodged, it’s a barrier to removal, and we still have to house them and fund them. Now, they’ll go through the whole process again till they get to appeal rights exhausted and they’ll lodge another claim to say: ‘Well, I’m homosexual now.’”
‘We are changing the law’ A Home Office spokesman said: “We take all allegations seriously and are committed to addressing any concerns appropriately. However, we do not accept the characterisation of these concerns as presented.
“The integrity of the UK immigration system is paramount. We operate within a robust framework of safeguards and quality assurance measures to ensure that all claims are thoroughly assessed, decisions are well-founded, and protection is granted only to those who meet the established criteria.
“We are changing the law so individuals convicted of sexual offences cannot be granted asylum in the UK.”
The Home Office denied that asylum caseworkers had to prioritise speed and volume and said standards of decision-making were maintained through robust quality assurance measures.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said: “It is shameful that illegal immigrants charged with criminal offences are getting given asylum. No foreign criminal or illegal immigrant should be able to claim asylum. They should be deported immediately. We will need to exit the ECHR to do this – but our country’s safety demands it.”
Re: It gets worse.....! A long read to boil your blood!
America, Canada, Australia, China, Russia, are just some of the countries not part of ECHR. Why will it be such a disaster to leave, Tony Blair’s great idea which is destroying this country .
Re: It gets worse.....! A long read to boil your blood!
It seems to me that Governments seem to like these people to reside in our country.
Tony Blair has so much to answer for, so many of our problems can be put right at his front door, odious man.
Re: Try This Mac
Posted by AJG on 6/11/2025, 5:02 pm, in reply to "Try This Mac"
I saw this on the BBC web site yesterday.
I remember thinking when I first saw all the Turkish barber shops, vape shops etc. when I last visited the UK, that there had to be something fishy about them. There's no way there could be enough demand to support them all. I remember thinking that they had to be fronts for money laundering or similar. Reading this article about the mini-marts and the multiple levels of criminality going on here makes me think I was probably right!
Re: Try This Mac
Posted by Joseph on 6/11/2025, 9:40 pm, in reply to "Re: Try This Mac"
Can't councils not refuse a licence for these obviously suspicious barber, vape, Turkish food shops, am sure if we tried to do the same over there country we would be on the next plane home minus a lot of money.
Absolutelt for AJG
Posted by Mac C on 7/11/2025, 9:44 am, in reply to "Re: Try This Mac"
I think the only people who didn't see all this as fishy were in local and national Government AJG.
Re: Try This Mac
Posted by Mac Hardy on 7/11/2025, 10:05 am, in reply to "Try This Mac"
Success thanks, makes horrific reading, pity we don’t have a Government to control this !
Re: Try This Mac
Posted by Norman on 7/11/2025, 2:30 pm, in reply to "Re: Try This Mac"
I remember in the 60s when a British Pop Star was refused entry into the USA because of a drug offence. This hopeless Government with Mr Bean as its PM should be protecting its citizens and its not when its allowing Invaders who are SEX OFFENDERS into our once great country. They are Filthy scum and British Tax Payers have to keep them, because who would want to employ them???????? Then Rachel Reeves the Chancellor is going to raise income taxe at the coming Budget to fund Invaders. This Government havent got a clue.
