Hospitality staff agency fined £30,000 for employing illegal workers
Recruitachef Ltd has been named and shamed in a government report as part of an ongoing crackdown on illegal working practices. It is one of several hundred employers that were given a total of 366 civil penalties worth over £18m in the three months between July and September last year.
Eleven agency workers who were employed illegally as cleaners, porters and maids through Recruitachef Ltd were arrested in a raid at the London Marriott Hotel Regents Park in 2023.
They worked 15 hours a day but were thought to only be paid half the normal salary for the roles at the hotel under two separate subcontractors.
The agency staff were of six different nationalities, and none had the right to work in the UK. One of those arrested had been smuggled into the UK illegally.
It is understood the London Marriott Hotel Regents Park supported the Home Office throughout the investigation and immediately stopped working with Recruitachef Ltd when the issue came to light.
Employers can be sent to jail for five years and must pay an unlimited fine if they are found guilty of employing someone they knew or had reasonable cause to believe did not have the right to work in the UK.