大象传媒

SAWS SCAM

Producing fake SAWS permits is big business for crooks

The fields of Kent and Sussex offer rich pickings for the thousands of foreign students who travel to the area every year to work on farms. But the scheme bringing these workers over is being hijacked by fraudsters who are forging documents and keeping the profits for themselves.

Each year around 20,000 legitimate foreign students flood into the UK to work on farms in the South East.

It's a scheme that not only brings people to our shores, but also helps local farmers.

But some people are making a fortune by getting thousands of farm workers into the UK illegally with phoney documents.

Inside Out South East follows the trail of the dodgy dealings.

Perfect pickings

Kent is often referred to as the "Garden of England", and this is certainly ideal crop producing country.

It's the perfect place for harvesting all manner of edible delights, from pears and apples to cauliflowers and spring greens.

But this produce requires an army of people for harvesting, which is where the government's migrant worker's scheme comes in.

Most of the thousands of overseas workers who come to help farmers during the harvest come under the government's Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS).

Thousands of students apply to work in the UK every year

SAWS allows students, mostly from Eastern Europe, to come to the UK for up to six months to work on our farms.

It seems there's no shortage of workers wanting to come to the UK, and no shortage of farmers who welcome the assistance.

It's this high demand that has interested gangmasters, who have found themselves a niche in the market.

Victor Cox and his son Jason are just two of the men who stepped into the world of dodgy dealings involving farm labour.

The pair employed thousands of foreign workers on forged SAWS work permits.

Victor and Jason's scam was found out, and in March 2004 they were jailed for seven years each.

Inside Out South East has been visiting Victor and Jason in prison since August 2004, in an attempt to find out how they turned the SAWS scheme rotten.

Sizeable scam

Using fraudulent documents to bring illegal farm workers into the UK was a family business for the Cox's.

Valerie and Maria Cox did the payroll for their husbands' company, Student Recruitment, and know the gangmaster business inside out.

"You know you are taking on someone who shouldn't be working for you, but that happens," says Maria.

Maria and Valerie believe people will always find dodgy papers if they want them

As their husbands serve a seven year stretch, Valerie and Maria feel they were hard done by.

They say that it's something that is going on everywhere.

"There are still other gangmasters out there who have done far worse and who have not been raided," Valerie says.

Victor and Jason used forged documents to convince illegal immigrants, and businesses, that they had a right to work in the UK.

The pair was responsible for employing around 1,700 illegal workers in, what turned out to be, a multimillion pound scam.

Worth the risk?

So, if thousands of people are entering Britain with forged SAWS permits, why don't we scrap the scheme all together?

Well, many farmers couldn't do without the extra assistance each year and rely on the SAWS project to keep their businesses afloat.

Robert Mitchell runs one of Kent's biggest apple and pear farms.

He, legally, employs over 100 SAWS students each year and would be lost if he didn't have that source of labour.

Robert Mitchell's farm relies on foreign workers

"We face a real problem of not being able to get our harvest in if we don't have access to a workforce such as SAWS聟 it's that basic," Robert explains.

But it appears more and more employers are, perhaps unknowingly, taking on illegal labour.

Inside Out managed to view a copy of a confidential immigration report written in 2002 that stated, "I have examined 2,287 dossiers of employees. I have already identified 676 forgeries.

"The findings to date are indicative of systematic abuse of the SAWS scheme on a massive scale".

On the back of the damning report, tighter security measures were introduced, but those involved in the SAWS project feel it is still open to abuse.

Starting point

To get to the bottom of the issue, Inside Out's Paul Ross travelled to Lithuania, where he met some of those involved in the industry.

Roderick Tuck is an Englishman abroad. He lives in the Lithuanian industrial city of Kaunaus where, until last year, he ran a business recruiting students to the SAWS scheme.

"We had queues and queues of people lining up for the quota we had," Roderick says.

He found that many of those who couldn't get on the scheme would go elsewhere - the black market.

Roderick used to be inundated with people wanting to work in the UK

As Roderick shows Paul the current state of Lithuania, it is clear it has become a nation of two ages.

On the one hand, you see the generation who grew up under Soviet control, yet on the other hand there's a new generation eager to catch up with the West.

It's these young adults who are keen to get to the UK to enjoy a better way of life.

One legitimate worker on a UK farm commented, "In one day here I earn what my mother earns in one month."

And the fact is, it can be extremely easy to get false documents. Just 拢50 bought Inside Out two Home Office work permits.

There were no questions, no names, no problems - and selling them on was just as easy.

In May 2004, Lithuania became part of the EU, so students can now work in the UK legally, but many Eastern European countries are still following the track Lithuania was just one year ago.

Middle man

It's not just gangs overseas who are trying to take advantage of the system.

Paul Ross speaks to a man in Dover who has provided false documents for students to enable them to stay in the UK.

He worked for the Cox's and has recently been released from jail.

The former dodgy dealer said our fake permits would pass most checks

According to him, the problem is a big one.

"It's an easy way of gaining entry to the United Kingdom.

"You've got to remember that there are well funded Eastern European gangs, who are operating here and overseas, who have massive facilities to print these papers.

"They have people in the Home Office聟 they get originals from the Home Office, blank, then they copy them in their own countries," he says.

According to this former dodgy dealer, the checks that currently go on are even less than those used when he was involved.

Answers

SAWS is an easy target for fraudsters. For one thing, it doesn't have a central computer system administering the permits

Secondly, it isn't down to immigration to check the validity of the permits when workers enter the country.

That falls at the feet of companies bringing them out as well as farmers, which is a fact that frustrates many people.

"We are not sufficiently experienced to know a university certificate from the Ukraine, it's ridiculous," says Robert.

Thousands of fake documents are made and used every year

Armed with some of the facts surrounding illegal workers, Paul Ross approaches the Home Office.

After explaining Inside Out's story, he is given an official statement that says, "SAWS cards now have a unique watermark ingrained in the paper and there are better checks at foreign universities.

"Progress is being made."

The statement also says that by 2008 there will be an electronic record of all passengers, including those on temporary work schemes, who enter and leave the UK.

In the meantime, even officials admit that dodgy permits can be the perfect way for a fraudster to enter the UK and not go home.