defraud

In this feature, VICTOR AYENI writes about how Nigerian travel applicants are fleeced by recruitment agencies who promise to assign them Certificates of Sponsorship which will qualify them to take up skilled jobs in the United Kingdom

In March 2022, Mrs Funmilayo Buraimo-Danmusa received a phone call from a legal business partner in the United Kingdom, Olalekan Ayuba.

Ayuba had called to inform her that he had just registered his company, Click Operations Limited (UK) with the National Health Service and was now approved by the Home Office to conduct international recruitments.

This registration qualified Ayuba’s agency to recruit immigrants who want to secure caregiver jobs in the UK who are expected to get a certificate of sponsorship.

The CoS is a key electronic document that affirms that the intending immigrant has been offered employment to be a caregiver in the country.

Sunday PUNCH gathered that the CoS is issued by an employer following the offer of a definite job which is on the government’s approved list.

The employer is also expected to be approved by the UK government to provide sponsorship.

When the CoS is issued to a foreign or immigrant worker, they use it to apply for their visa within three months before the start date of the job listed on the certificate.

Buraimo-Danmusa said after Ayuba showed her all the necessary documents and digital links proving his firm’s registration with the Home Office, she double-checked all his claims. It turned out that Ayuba’s firm was indeed legitimate.

Checks by Sunday PUNCH on the Gov.UK website confirmed that Click Operations, based in Leeds, Yorkshire, was incorporated on August 21, 2022.

On its website, Clicks Operations Healthcare describes itself as “a reputable care recruitment agency that provides high-quality medical and healthcare staffing to some of the UK’s most prominent care service providers.”

The agency’s website also claims to “provide supported living services to people with physical, mental, and emotional disabilities in homes located throughout Leeds.”

“As a travel agent, I had a personal relationship with Ayuba and his family. He speaks to my family as well. He promised my mother and husband that the CoS from Click Operations would never fail. But it failed,” Buraimo-Danmusa told Sunday PUNCH.

Some other applicants who also hoped to receive their COS from Ayuba’s agency said they did not get it even after the deadline which barred international students from bringing dependants into the UK expired in January 2024.

Findings by Sunday PUNCH showed that after a CoS is assigned to the employee, the employer is expected to pay a fee for the certificate, but no employer is legally permitted to make an applicant pay them a fee in return for employing them.

According to ICS Legal, a UK firm that specialises in Immigration Law, British Nationality and European Law, “When the employer completes the Certificate of Sponsorship, the salary must contain the guaranteed basic gross pay.

“No other pay and benefits must be included when assessing salary. The Home Office has set out transitional arrangements for those switching from Tier 2 General Visa to the Skilled Worker Visa.”

Endless spending, tragic loss

Believing that she was working within a legitimate framework, Buraimo-Danmusa said she opted to work with Ayuba because she was interested in the offer herself.

“I made payment for documentation, health insurance, and application fees for myself and my sister. I applied for my sister because of her only son who was a special child, and medical practitioners had failed us in Nigeria, so I wanted us to try out treatments for him in the UK.

“After I applied, Ayuba insisted I make the offer open using my travelling agency channel and the applicants only need to pay for training fees, application fees, health insurance, visa, and accommodation as I had paid. I got him new clients.

“Some of them left other offers with me and jumped on Lekan Benjamin Ayuba’s and Click Operations’ offer after paying thousands of pounds for all his service charges; it appeared the best anyone would opt for,” she stated.

Buraimo-Danmusa also alleged that she and other applicants spent millions of naira on several tuberculosis tests, international driving licences, and police reports, and some clients even wrote the International English Language Testing System twice.

They allegedly spent hundreds of thousands converting their Nigerian academic certificates to the UK standard through the National Recognition Information Centre.

Explaining further, Buraimo-Danmisa disclosed that due to Ayuba’s false promises, many of the applicants resigned from work and stopped paying their children’s school fees as they awaited their CoS so they could start a new life in the UK with their families.

She added, “While Lekan Benjamin Ayuba was deceitfully delaying us with excuses, my 18-year-old nephew whom we planned to take abroad for treatment fell sick and I was also being operated upon in the theatre at the same time.

“This divided the family such that some were with me, while the others took him to the hospital, but it was too late. He was brought in dead.

“Our major hope of treating him was moving him to the UK. Lekan Benjamin Ayuba and Click Operations shattered it, we lost a child we’ve treated locally with millions of naira to a false promise.”

Buraimo-Danmusa further alleged that attempts to reach Ayuba were scuttled as he had blocked all the primary applicants and agents on all their social media accounts and refused to take their calls.

“Even his wife blocked me on her WhatsApp. Ayuba has refused to make refunds and refused to issue CoS to the primary applicants. He dashed our hopes, wasted our time and defrauded us. Now, I’ve become a debtor all because I trusted him,” she said with a regretful tone.

‘I lost my entire savings to him’

Another applicant, Isaac Olatunji, told Sunday PUNCH that he learnt about Ayuba’s company in March 2023, through his friend’s wife who was based in the UK and vouched for his credibility.

Olatunji said, “They said he was a pastor but that didn’t build my trust. But what convinced me that he was genuine was what my friend’s wife said and this man looked real with the people working with him. I paid him N5m on June 8, 2023. He had initially demanded N10m but we bargained. I had to empty my entire savings and even took a loan.

“He promised to send me my CoS in August, then it shifted to September. I called him and he said they were still waiting for the Home Office. When it was November, I reminded him again, he said I shouldn’t worry. Yet, I heard that people get their CoS within two months.

“By January, I began to have mistrust for this man. When it got to March, he was no longer taking his calls or responding to messages. Then he promised April, then June this year. When it was June, I was no longer interested in travelling, I just wanted him to refund my money, and he has ghosted me ever since. He took all my entire savings from five years.”

The father of one said the last time Ayuba responded in July, he claimed he could not send the money because he had a problem with his bank.

“This man said it would be resolved in three weeks and that how much is my money, that I shouldn’t burn bridges and I apologised if I said anything wrong to him. Up till now, he’s yet to give me even N5m out of my money,” Olatunji added.

Frustrated applicant seeks refund

Also speaking with Sunday PUNCH, another UK travel applicant, Mrs Bolanle Ogunbanwo, said she was introduced to Ayuba by her travel agent in April 2023.

The mother of two said she was asked to enrol in a series of training which Ayuba said was approved by the Home Office and urged to register for some courses which lasted for three months.

Ogunbanwo said, “I also wrote IELTS and General Examinations which are quite exorbitant and consumed much money. Ayuba said we should prepare for UKVI which I still had to pay for.

“Because of the lack of facilities in the North where I live, I had to come down to Lagos and also did a police report and tuberculosis test which both eventually expired. Ayuba told me the CoS was ready and at that time, my rent expired, I inquired if this was true because I couldn’t return home and knew my children had to travel to Lagos with me.

“On getting down here, he said they had been asked not to issue that particular certificate and that we should wait. We kept waiting and he kept giving us different stories that the Home Office did this and did that. He began to delay us.”

Ogunbanwo lamented that all the while, her family asked her to demand a refund for her money and seek another route of travelling out, but she persisted because of the efforts, money expended and documents already filed.

In a video recording of a Zoom meeting said to have been held on November 24, 2023, and forwarded to our correspondent by Ogunbanwo, Ayuba assured applicants that they would start receiving their CoS that same day.

“Your CoS will start coming in today. I know not all of you will get yours today but if you do not get it today, do not fret. You will get your CoS as soon as possible,” he said.

“It got to a time when he (Ayuba) sent me a document that while we were waiting to get another CoS, he’s sending me an invitation to come in as a visitor but he asked that I send him my bank statement to know if the balance I had was enough to get my visa approved.

“Then in April this year, I asked him to refund my money. When we started asking for refunds, he then started saying he was just trying to help and I insisted that he should pay through the channel I paid because I paid him in pounds. He said he would pay me back in naira.

“One day, I received a credit alert of N499,000. I couldn’t accept it. I asked him what is this money for. I rejected it because I didn’t pay him in instalments. He got my account number from the bank statement I sent to him. Ever since then, he has blocked me and stopped taking my calls. That was in June,” she added.

The mother lamented that the delay in obtaining the certificate had affected her children’s education and made them stay at home for months.

“He did much emotional damage to us. All the money we spent doing all kinds of tests and filing reports, moving from one place to another was wasted. I want a refund,” she stated.

Ayuba unresponsive

When our correspondent dialled Ayuba’s international phone number provided by his clients, he was directed to a voice mail where he left a message for him.

This correspondent also sent a message to his Facebook account, but it indicated that the message could not be sent because his account setting did not receive public messages.

However, using X (formerly Twitter) search, our correspondent found a link to a blog posted in 2017 at the bottom of which his email address was written.

When our correspondent sent an email to request his response to the allegations made against him, Ayuba replied, “Thank you for your email. Please clarify what you mean by financial scam and kindly let me know who is laying the claim of financial scam against me. Thanks.”

However, Ayuba has yet to respond to our correspondent’s email detailing the allegations made against him as of the time of filing this report.

A recurring scam

Sunday PUNCH learnt that many Nigerians who are desperate to escape the hardship in the country and seek greener pastures in the UK have been swindled out of their hard-earned money.

With the constant wave of desperate Nigerians surging out of the country in search of care jobs in the UK, unscrupulous agencies have been taking advantage of them by defrauding them of millions of naira to obtain CoS among other important documents.

According to the latest State of the Adult Social Care Sector and Workforce report 9.9 per cent of positions in the care industry were vacant in 2022-2023, which is equivalent to 152,000 vacancies being advertised on an average day.

As a result of this shortfall, UK employers have looked towards other countries to hire care workers. However, due to the exit of the UK from the European Union, countries like India, Nigeria and Zimbabwe once again became top sources for the UK’s adult social care sector.

In March 2024, Sunday PUNCH reported how a Nigerian based in Canada, Kayode Oyedare, was accused of fleecing many people of millions of naira under the pretext of getting them certificates of sponsorship for care jobs in the UK.

Oyedare, reportedly in business with Peniela Akintujoye, a Nigerian travel agent, misled intending migrants seeking work in UK care homes.

It was gathered that initially partners, Akintujoye entrusted his clients’ money to Oyedare based on past associations. However, Oyedare failed to deliver, deceiving both migrants and Akintujoye.

This scam came to light when the victims began interacting with one another, and they realised to their chagrin that Oyedare had even defrauded more people than they had initially thought.

One of the victims, who gave his name simply as Ojelabi, claimed that out of the over N7m he paid to Oyedare, he (Oyedare) refunded only N1,500,000 before going incommunicado.

Akintujoye also said that out of about N90m paid by his clients to Oyedare, only N6m was refunded.

At the time, when Sunday PUNCH informed Oyedare that the victims wanted their funds back in full and asked him to give them a specific timeline for the refunds to be made, he said, “They are getting refunds already. That is what I am explaining to you, but I cannot be specific on an exact time.”

An investigation by the Daily Mail (UK) in March also showed that operators exploit Home Office loopholes to exploit desperate immigrants who wish to work in the UK.

The Daily Mail probe into the ‘cash for care jobs scandal’ found some outfits charge overseas applicants ‘work finder fees’ of up to £20,000 (N44m) to help them get a visa allowing them to live in the UK.

One ‘adviser,’ a Baptist minister, told an undercover reporter that for £9,000 (N20m) he could help her arrange a job in just three days with “100 per cent” success guaranteed.

One migrant was quoted in the report as saying he paid £6,000 (N13m) cash for a CoS at a meeting at one of the company’s offices in the north-west of England, but never received sponsorship.

In December 2023, an agency of the United Nations – International Organisation for Migration – stated that over 1,000 Nigerians had been duped with fake employment letters and other documents.

Speaking in Abuja in December 2023, IOM’s Chief of Mission, Laurent De Boeck, advised potential migrants to be cautious of syndicates that specialised in offering fake employment letters to Nigerians seeking to work in the UK.

Sunday PUNCH also contacted the UK Government Home Office on September 28 to complain about Ayuba’s company’s alleged activities but the Home Office is yet to respond to the email as of the time of filing this report.