Members of a criminal gang that manufactured and sold fake CSCS cards have been jailed.
The criminals offered British passports, residence permits, degree certificates and CSCS cards – all of them fake. Prices ranged from £900 for a passport to £200 for a CSCS card or a degree certificate.
The ring was exposed by Immigration Enforcement’s criminal and financial investigation (CFI) team who unearthed widescale distribution of the fake documents.
The gang of seven was led by Steven Kanaventi, 39, of Mulliner Street, Coventry, and Alfred Adekoya, 47, of Kingslake Street, London. They were jailed at Woolwich Crown Court and sentenced to three years, four months and two weeks imprisonment having pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture a fake document at an earlier hearing.
CFI inspector Ben Thomas said: “The criminal business that Kanaventi and Adekoya were running was designed to undermine the fundamental immigration rule that if you have no legal status in the UK, you have no right to work.
“Their customers hoped that the fake documents would be enough to convince prospective employers that they were entitled to work, in turn allowing them to a build a life for themselves in the UK to which they were simply not entitled.
“By bringing Kanaventi, Adekoya and their associates to justice we have stopped a concerted, systematic and financially motivated assault on the UK’s immigration system.”
Adekoya was arrested on 20 June 2017 after making an exchange inside a betting shop in Woolwich with a man subsequently identified as Luke Nkanta, 29. When Adekoya was stopped and searched shortly after the transaction had been made he was found in possession of three counterfeit British passports.
The jail sentences handed out in total were:
- Steven Kanaventi – Three years, four months and two weeks;
- Alfred Adekoya – Three years, four months and two weeks;
- Paul Kanaventi – Nine months;
- Abdul Azeeza – Four years;
- Victor Ariyo – Three years;
- Luke Nkanta – One year, four months;
- Madalitso Majawa – Six months.
