Illegal Indian immigrants thriving in London: BBC

Illegal Indian immigrants thriving in London: BBC

Hasan Suroor

Probe reveals that they are using forged passports, driving licences

LONDON: A large number of illegal Indian immigrants are living and working in London using forged documents, including passports, driving licences and utility bills, according to an undercover BBC investigation.

The immigrants, secretly filmed over a period of six months, are all from Punjab and concentrated in Southall, a west London suburb dubbed the “Little India” because of its overwhelmingly Indian — mostly Sikh — population.

“More than 40 houses packed with illegal immigrants were identified in one square mile of Southall. The young, mostly male Punjabis, are not here lawfully and … most know the risks, they have few legal rights. They are surrounded by forgers, criminals and ruthless employers,” the BBC said in a report broadcast on its prime-time Ten O’Clock news bulletin on Wednesday.

A Punjabi-speaking man, who called himself Vicki, was filmed boasting how he could arrange any document from a passport to a driving licence and a national insurance card that immigrants need to find work.

“Middlemen”

In the film, he is seen telling an undercover reporter that he has customers all over Britain and worked through “middlemen” — a Pakistani and a “white guy.”

He said he needed them because he himself could not speak English.

Vicki said he could also arrange for Italian, Portuguese and Belgian passports. Asked by the undercover reporter if they were stolen or fake, he retorted that they were “original” passports and he had them “checked” to beat airport security.

Job offers

The BBC said its undercover team found that there was no shortage of job offers for these illegal immigrants, who called themselves “foujis” (soldiers).

But they were exploited by employers who knew they were here illegally and were vulnerable.

Often they worked long hours for a pittance and if they decided to leave they were not paid their dues.

‘Network of criminality’

A reporter, masquerading as an illegal immigrant, found himself a job at an Indian chip shop in Southall, but after working a “14-hour day with no break” when he wanted to quit and asked for his wages the shop-owner Bhupinder Singh refused.

The BBC said its investigation revealed an extensive “network of criminality” involving widespread unlawful job practices, squalid housing, and a thriving trade in fake documents.