Global Courant 2023-05-18 00:45:00
Men in Britain are receiving thousands of dollars to pose as fathers of migrant women’s children, a BBC investigation has found.
Fraudsters use Facebook to promote their business and claim to have helped thousands of women in this way.
Facebook says that this type of content is prohibited under its rules.
An investigation carried out by the BBC Newsnight program discovered that the scam takes place in different communities of migrants in the United Kingdom.
The mechanism consists of a network of agents operating across the country who are looking for British men to be “fake fathers”.
The BBC investigator posed as a pregnant woman who was in the country irregularly, spoke to the people who offer these services and was able to learn how the system works.
The “Fake Dad” Scam
An agent named Thai told the investigator that he had several British men who could act as false fathers and offered him a “whole package” for 11,000 pounds (about $13,700).
This person described the process as “very easy” and said he would “do everything possible” to get the boy a British passport.
Thai, who does not appear on Facebook, said he would make up a convincing story to fool authorities.
To do this, Thai put the BBC investigator in touch with a Briton named Andrew, who would pose as the father and charge him 8,000 pounds (about $10,000) for the service.
BBCThai offered to act as a go-between.
During the meeting, Andrew showed his passport to prove that he was a British citizen. He also took selfies with the investigator.
The BBC did not pay any money to any of the agents offering the fake father service.
Later, when Thai was asked about his involvement in the plot, he denied having committed any crime and said he “didn’t know anything about it.”
Andrew has not responded to our request for a response.
Another agent calling herself Thi Kim claimed that she had helped thousands of pregnant migrant women.
Kim said he could put her in touch with a British man and it would cost “10,000 for the father,” with a fee of 300 pounds (almost $400) for her.
BBCThe BBC investigator with his face covered next to Andrew, one of the “false fathers”.
“All the men I contacted were born here and have never registered any other baby as their own before,” Thi Kim told the investigator.
“I know how to handle everything. You don’t have to worry about not having a passport. They will definitely give it to you.”
Thi Kim has not responded to the BBC’s request for comment.
The fake father scam is described as “incredibly elaborate” by immigration attorney Ana González. “It’s a very sophisticated method, incredibly difficult to monitor,” she says.
“In a way, it’s just proof of how desperate these women are and the incredible situations they are willing to go through to secure the right to stay in the UK.”
BBCThi Kim is another of the agents that facilitate access to “false parents”.
If a migrant woman is in the UK undocumented and gives birth to a child whose father is a British citizen or a man on permanent residence, the baby is automatically British by birth.
The mother can then apply for a family visa, which will give her the right to stay in the UK and apply for citizenship in due course.
“This rule is to protect children, not to grant visas to women who do not have papers,” says González. “It is not an escape. It shouldn’t be seen as such.”
The BBC was unable to estimate the scale of the scam, as the Home Office did not provide data on the number of cases that were investigated.
Nor has it published data on the number of visas granted to parents of British children who do not reside in the United Kingdom.
“Not just once”
Last year 4,860 family visas were granted to “other dependents”, a category that includes those applying to remain in the UK as parents of British children.
Deliberately giving false information on a birth certificate is a crime.
The Home Office told the BBC it has measures in place to prevent and detect immigration fraud through fake birth certificates.
BBCThi Kim is another of the agents that facilitate access to “false parents”.
The ministry indicates that “a birth certificate by itself may not be sufficient proof of paternity.”
In cases where it is necessary to establish it, “additional tests may be requested so that our verifications can be completed satisfactorily.”
However, migration lawyer Harjap Bhangal questions whether enough action is being taken:
“It’s not an isolated case, possibly thousands… The Home Ministry hasn’t noticed,” says Bhangal.
The lawyer states that this practice occurs in many migrant communities, including those in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Sri Lanka, and that it has been in place for many years.
Newsnight’s investigation found that the illegal practice is advertised on some Vietnamese Facebook groups for job seekers.
Search for fathers in social networks
We found dozens of messages from accounts bragging about their credentials as proper fake fathers, as well as from women seeking British men to pose as fathers.
One account posted: “I am 4 months pregnant. I am in desperate need of a 25-45 year old citizen father.”
“I am a dad with a red notebook (slang for the British passport). If you are pregnant and do not have a father, send me a message“read another.
Meta, the company that owns Facebook, says that it does not allow “adoption requests or falsification of birth certificates on the social network” and that it will continue to remove content that violates its policies.
We spoke to a woman who told us she had paid £9,000 (more than $11,200) to a man to pose as the father of her child.
Getty ImagesFacebook says the fake parent scam violates its policies.
“He was 30 years older than me. I heard that he had done it with another woman before ”.
The woman said she did not have much contact with the man. They saw each other only three times, one of them when they went to the civil registry for the birth certificate.
Another woman told us that she had paid £10,000 (more than $12,400) to a man to pose as a father, but the operation did not go as expected.
“Only a day after receiving my baby’s birth certificate I found out that he did not actually have British nationality. I went crazy, because he had already put his details on the birth certificate. I couldn’t change it.”
The woman now has an unknown father as the registered father of her baby and neither she nor her son were granted permission to remain in the country.
Harjap Bhangal says the Home Ministry should better investigate visa applications that raise a “red flag”.
“If a child claims to be British and has one British parent and one non-British parent, that should be a perfect case for a simple request for a DNA test.”
But in the UK DNA tests are not required to register a birth or apply for a child’s British passport.
Therefore, Bhangal does not believe that many people are prosecuted for this crime. “That’s why people do it, because they don’t fear any repercussions.”
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