Cash for visas scandal: Corrupt immigration advisers ‘charge migrants up to £22,000 for skilled worker visas’

The Government is “taking action” on visa abuse, Downing Street has insisted amid allegations that corrupt immigration advisors are charging under qualified migrants up to £22,000 to supply them with skilled worker visas.

The scam involves businesses applying for special sponsorship licences from the Home Office because they claim they cannot find the right workers in Britain and therefore need to recruit from abroad.

Immigration advisers then coach the foreign workers on how to overstate their levels of education and experience to secure a visa to come to the UK.

An investigation by the Daily Mail found that migrants an advisor at one recruitment firm was helping to employ had to pay "work finder fees" of between £19,000 to £22,000 for the job and visa.

They were then often working 60 hours a week and earning far below the minimum wage, with the advisor pocketing a large commission.

New rules, introduced last April, mean foreign workers need a job offer with a salary of at least £38,700 for a skilled worker visa. There are lower wage thresholds for health and care visas.

The newspaper secretly filmed the consultant admitting that he allegedly tricks the Home Office into believing firms need a certificate of sponsorship to take on overseas employees and then helps recruit unqualified immigrant workers who will officially earn about £3,000 a month to meet minimum salary requirements, but in reality have to pay about two thirds of their wages back to their bosses.

To employ from overseas, companies need a sponsor licence from the Home Office, which costs £525 per worker.

Businesses are responsible for paying the sponsor licence fee and administrative costs and should not attempt to recoup the money from employees.

On Monday, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said the firm highlighted by the Mail had had its sponsorship licence suspended and "urgent investigations are underway".

He added: "We're obviously always looking to take action where the rules aren't being followed. In the last six months of last year, we suspended the highest total of skilled worker sponsor licences since records began, we've announced new measures to crackdown further on visa abuse, which will see rogue employers who have abused visa rules banned from sponsoring overseas workers for at least two years. The arrests from legal working raids are up 50%."

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: "These so-called immigration advisers and immigration lawyers appear very often to arrange immigration fraud. These people need to be identified."