Nursing agency boss who scammed migrant workers out of £100,000 with fake visas jailed for 18 months

A former nurse who operated the UK end of an international forged visa fraud, conning would-be workers from abroad out of thousands of pounds with bogus promises of jobs and sponsorship, has been jailed for 18 months.

Sunitha Kemlo, a first offender, was told by a sheriff that she had played “an essential role in the operation of a sophisticated scheme”.

Sheriff Euan Gosney told her: “The court has a responsibility to deter those who would seek financial gain through criminal means which undermine the security of our immigration system.”

Kemlo, 48, ran a company that netted more than £100,000 providing migrants with forged documents and jobs that did not materialise.

Stirling Sheriff Court heard that the mother-of-two was arrested after several clients complained to the police and “a wide-ranging police and Home Office investigation took place”.

Her flat was searched, she was arrested, her telephone was seized and analysed, and revealed “extensive” conversations relating to the fraud.

Some of her victims were abroad, in India and Nigeria, and hoped to come to work in the UK, while others were already in the UK on student visas and hoped to remain.

Kemlo, of Cornton in Stirling, pleaded guilty to defrauding her victims out of a total of £105,580 during the period of the scam, between August 2022 and December 2023.

Individual victims paid sums ranging from £3,000 to over £13,000 for work visas and crucial “certificates of sponsorship” – official documents that act as passports to work in the UK.

Joanne Ritchie, prosecuting, said: “Over the period of time, the accused was engaged in a fraudulent scheme which was centred on the pretence that people outside the UK would be provided with a Certificate of Sponsorship, a job placement and a work visa in exchange for a fee.

“It became apparent to customers over time that documents they were provided with were forgeries, and did not originate from the Home Office, and that job placements and visas had not in fact been arranged.”

Kemlo operated the scam through an agency – BizzNurse Ltd – that she had set up in 2016 and had originally operated legally.

The court heard it was accepted by the Crown that Kemlo was “not at the top of the hierarchy in the scheme, and was in effect acting as facilitator”.

Ms Ritchie, the depute fiscal, said Kemlo was engaged in the scheme with a man named as John Mwanyali, who is currently in Zimbabwe.

The prosecutor added: “Mwanyali appears to be the individual who was exercising control over the scheme and the work carried out by the accused in furtherance of same.”

Kemlo told clients Mwanyali was an immigration lawyer and organised Teams meetings with him for clients.

The court heard several victims found out they had been conned when they contacted the care services where they had supposedly got jobs – in England, Scotland and also Wales – to find out they had never issued the offers of employment. One Edinburgh-based care firm had never even heard of Bizz Nurse, while reference numbers on certificates of sponsorship that Kemlo had provided were false.

One victim made a 1,600-kilometre round trip in her home country three times for “biometric appointments” that never existed, while another, in the UK, travelled to Glasgow for a biometric appointment, only to find it also did not exist.

The court heard that during the period of the fraud, Kemlo had been paid around £17,000 as “salary” for what she did, while over £96,000 had been remitted to Mwanyali.

Alastair Ross, defending, said Kemlo had founded BizzNurse in December 2016 and had traded “on a perfectly legitimate basis” for years before she got involved in the fraud.

Mr Ross said: “She initially had good intentions.”

He said she now suffered from “extreme paranoia” and rarely left her home.”

Mr Ross said Kemlo had repaid some of the money.

But Sheriff Gosney said a social background report described Kemlo as someone who showed no remorse.

Kemlo, who was supported on the public benches by a friend and a church minister in a dog collar, showed no emotion as she was handcuffed to a security guard and led away to the cells.