DORSET businesses caught employing illegal migrant workers have been hit with fines totalling almost £120,000 in the past year.
A total of 138 offenders have been discovered living or working illegally in the county and UK Border Agency’s Dorset team, based in Poole, carried out 36 illegal working raids this year.
Businesses hit included the Taj Mahal restaurant in Westbourne where five men from Bangladesh were found to be working illegally as waiters and kitchen staff on September 30.
The restaurant had already received a £30,000 fine in 2008 for employing six people who had no permission to work in UK.
And immigration officers calling on Bollywood Tandoori, in Lower Blandford Road, Broadstone, on September 23 found that all five members of staff present, all from Bangladesh, had no permission to work in the UK. The business was fined £25,000.
Four Israelis were removed from the UK after being found working on stalls selling beauty product in Poole’s Dolphin Shopping Centre on November 17.
