Recruitment agents who scam foreign nationals applying to work in the UK care sector have been exposed by BBC secret filming.

One of the rogue agents is a Nigerian doctor who has worked for the NHS in the field of psychiatry.

The Home Office has acknowledged the system is open to abuse, but the BBC World Service’s investigation shows the apparent ease with which these agents can scam people, avoid detection, and continue to profit.

Our secret filming reveals agents’ tactics, including:

• Illegally selling jobs in UK care companies
• Devising fake payroll schemes to conceal that some jobs do not exist
• Shifting from care to other sectors, like construction, that also face staff shortages

Reports of immigration scams have increased since a government visa scheme – originally designed to let foreign medical professionals work in the UK – was broadened in 2022 to include care workers.

To apply for the visa, candidates must first obtain a “Certificate of Sponsorship” (CoS) from a UK employer who is licensed by the Home Office. It is the need for CoS documents that is being exploited by rogue relocation agents.

“The scale of exploitation under the Health and Care Work visa is significant,” says Dora-Olivia Vicol, CEO of Work Rights Centre, a charity that helps migrants and disadvantaged people in the UK access employment justice.

“I think it has turned into a national crisis.”

She says there is “systemic risk inherent” in the sponsorship system, because it “puts the employer in a position of incredible power” and has “enabled this predatory market of middlemen to mushroom”.

The BBC sent two undercover journalists to approach relocation agents working in the UK.

One met Dr Kelvin Alaneme, a Nigerian doctor and founder of the agency, CareerEdu, based in Harlow, Essex.

His website states his business is a “launchpad for global opportunities catering to young Africans”, claiming to have 9,800 “happy clients”.

Believing the BBC undercover journalist was well connected in the UK care sector, Dr Alaneme tried to recruit her to become an agent for his business, saying it would be very lucrative.

“Just get me care homes. I can make you a millionaire,” he said.

As a potential business partner, our journalist was then given unprecedented insight into how immigration scams by agents like Dr Alaneme actually work. Dr Alaneme said he would pay £2,000 ($2,600) for each care home vacancy she was able to procure, and offered £500 ($650) commission on top.

He then said he would sell the vacancies to candidates back in Nigeria.

Charging candidates for a job is illegal in the UK.

“They [the candidates] are not supposed to be paying because it’s free. It should be free,” he said, lowering his voice.

“They are paying because they know it’s most likely the only way.”

The BBC began investigating him following a series of online complaints about his relocation services.

Praise – from south-east Nigeria and in his mid 30s – was one of those who complained, claiming he paid Dr Alaneme more than £10,000 ($13,000) for a job in the UK. He says he was told he was going to be working with a care company called Efficiency for Care, based in Clacton-on-Sea. It was only when he arrived that he realised the job didn’t exist.

“If I had known there was no job, I would have not come here,” he says. “At least back home in Nigeria, if you go broke, I can find my sister or my parents and go and eat free food. It’s not the same here. You will go hungry.”

Praise says he messaged Efficiency for Care and Dr Alaneme for months, asking when he could start working. Despite promises of assistance from Dr Alaneme, the job never materialised. Almost a year later, he found a position with another care provider willing to sponsor him to remain in the UK.

Our investigation found that Efficiency for Care employed – on average – 16 people in 2022, and 152 in 2023. Yet a letter sent from the Home Office to the company dated May 2023 – and seen by the BBC – showed it had issued 1,234 Certificates of Sponsorship to foreign workers between March 2022 and May 2023.

Efficiency for Care’s sponsorship licence was revoked in July 2023. The care company can no longer recruit from abroad, but continues to operate.

It told the BBC it strongly refutes the allegation it colluded with Dr Alaneme. It said it believed it lawfully recruited staff from Nigeria and other countries. It has challenged the Home Office’s revocation of its sponsorship licence, it said, and the matter is now in court.

In another secretly filmed meeting, Dr Alaneme shared an even more sophisticated scam involving sponsorship documents for jobs that did not exist.

He said the “advantage” of having a CoS that is unconnected to a job “is that you can choose any city you want”.

“You can go to Glasgow. You can stay in London. You can live anywhere,” he told us.

This is not true. If a migrant arrives in the UK on a Health and Care Work visa and does not work in the role they have been assigned, their visa could be cancelled and they risk being deported.

In the secret filming, Dr Alaneme also described how to set up a fake payroll system to mask the fact the jobs are not real.

“That [a money trail] is what the government needs to see,” he said.

Dr Alaneme told the BBC he strenuously denied services offered by CareerEdu were a scam or that it acted as a recruitment agency or provided jobs for cash. He said his company only offered legitimate services, adding that the money Praise gave him was passed on to a recruitment agent for Praise’s transport, accommodation and training. He said he offered to help Praise find another employer free of charge.

The BBC also carried out undercover filming with another UK-based recruitment agent, Nana Akwasi Agyemang-Prempeh, after several people told the BBC they had collectively paid tens of thousands of pounds for care worker positions for their friends and family that, it transpired, did not exist.

They said some of the Certificates of Sponsorship Mr Agyemang-Prempeh gave them had turned out to be fakes – replicas of real CoS issued by care companies.

We discovered Mr Agyemang-Prempeh had then begun offering CoS for UK jobs in construction – another industry that allows employers to recruit foreign workers. He was able to set up his own construction company and obtain a sponsorship licence from the Home Office.

Our journalist, posing as a UK-based Ugandan businessman wanting to bring Ugandan construction workers over to join him, asked Mr Agyemang-Prempeh if this was possible.

He replied it was – for the price of £42,000 ($54,000) for three people.

Mr Agyemang-Prempeh told us he had moved into construction because rules are being “tightened” in the care sector – and claimed agents were eyeing other industries.

“People are now diverting to IT,” Mr Agyemang-Prempeh told the undercover journalist.

More than 470 licences in the UK care sector were revoked by the government between July 2022 and December 2024. Those licensed sponsors were responsible for the recruitment of more than 39,000 medical professionals and care workers from October 2020.

Mr Agyemang-Prempeh later asked for a downpayment for the Certificates of Sponsorship, which the BBC did not make.

The Home Office has now revoked his sponsorship licence. Mr Agyemang-Prempeh’s defence, when challenged by the BBC, was that he had himself been duped by other agents and did not realise he was selling fake CoS documents.

In a statement to the BBC, the Home Office said it has “robust new action against shameless employers who abuse the visa system” and will “ban businesses who flout UK employment laws from sponsoring overseas workers”.

BBC investigations have previously uncovered similar visa scams targeting people in Kerala, India, and international students living in the UK who want to work in the care sector.

In November 2024, the government announced a clampdown on “rogue” employers hiring workers from overseas. Additionally, from 9 April, care providers in England will be required to prioritise recruiting international care workers already in the UK before recruiting from overseas.

Investigation team: Olaronke Alo, Chiagozie Nwonwu, Sucheera Maguire, Nyasha Michelle, and Chiara Francavilla