Potential fines of £50,000 for Castleford restaurant

15th December 2009, 11:11am

A Castleford restaurant has been landed with a possible £50,000 fine for illegally employing staff not eligible to work in the UK.

UK Border Agency Officers targeted Sai Chef Ltd restaurant on Unit 33B, Xscape, Colorado Way in Castleford shortly after 1700 on Thursday evening in an intelligence led operation that is part of a West Yorkshire wide crackdown on rogue employers.

On entering the restaurant, UK Border Agency Officers questioned staff inside and checked their documents to see if they were entitled to work.

They found five foreign nationals (three Pakistanis and two Indians) working their illegally. They were all arrested for entering the UK illegally and are currently being detained pending further investigations.

Jeremy Oppenheim, Regional Director of the UK Border Agency in North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, said: "As these arrests and fine show, the UK Border Agency takes illegal working very seriously. This operation is part of an ongoing clampdown on illegal working in the West Yorkshire to reduce the attractiveness of the UK to illegal immigrants."

The employer at Sai Chef Ltd was served with a notice of potential liability (NOPL) in relation to the five illegal workers. The employer has 28 days to provide the UK Border Agency with evidence that the correct right-to-work checks were carried out or face a fine of up to £10,000 per illegal worker.

The operation coincides with a large-scaled advertising campaign warning bosses of the heavy fines if caught employing illegal foreign labour.

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