The Story INVESTIGATION: Undercover in Britain’s immigration black market
Jan 28, 2026
Shanti Das, senior investigations reporter at The Times, went undercover to expose a booming black market for fake job sponsorships. She recounts secret meetings, how agents sell payroll-only visas, the paper trail companies create and the scale of Facebook groups driving demand. The investigation highlights risks, prices quoted and why tightened rules fuel this illicit trade.
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Undercover Meeting In East London
- Shanti Das and a colleague posed as a migrant and met an agent in an East London restaurant to investigate sponsorship offers.
- The agent explained issuing genuine Certificates of Sponsorship for a fake job in exchange for thousands of pounds.
Scale Of The Black Market
- Facebook groups and ads openly advertised payroll-only or no-job sponsorships and investigators found hundreds of such posts.
- Shanti Das concluded the market is happening at scale, not just as isolated scams.
Payroll‑Only Sponsorship Explained
- The undercover reporter was told a payroll-only sponsorship would cost £13,000 with a £5,000 initial payment and a fake senior management role on paper.
- The company would issue a genuine Certificate of Sponsorship and put the migrant on payroll while the migrant funded taxes and received most pay back.