EDITOR’S CHOICE

Asylum seekers found working in plain sight on UK High Streets…

A Kurdish crime network is enabling migrants to work illegally in mini-marts on High Streets the length of Britain, a BBC investigation has revealed.

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.

The investigation has 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 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. 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.

Reacting to the 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.”

Read the full story here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0mx99ple17o