Hundreds of illegal migrants are secretly sneaking back to the UK just weeks after being given £3,000 in British taxpayers’ cash as a bribe to return home, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Our investigation has discovered the migrants are cynically gaming the Home Office‘s ‘Assisted Voluntary Return Scheme’ where they are each given a one-off payment and a plane ticket home.
Fixers brazenly offer step-by-step advice on social media detailing how to pocket the money, cheat the system and get back to Britain, openly scorning the UK Government as ‘too trusting’.
The MoS investigation shows Brazilians to the forefront of the scam. One man says: ‘There are jokers who come back as soon as they set foot in Brazil… hahaha!’
This newspaper discovered that:
- Social media posts advise illegal migrants to get a new passport when they have returned to Brazil with their cash, fly to the EU and make their way to Ireland, and then back to Britain via Belfast;
- One man bragged about how he easily fooled Irish immigration authorities into giving him a five-day tourist visa – and posted photos about how easy it was to get from there back to the UK;
- A Brazilian family of four were awarded £12,000 under the scheme to rebuild their house in Brazil, and six months later the father sneaked back into the UK to work illegally as a delivery rider;
- One couple used the money to return to Brazil to have their baby, and then slipped back into the UK so the mother could return to work illegally as a cleaner.
Micael Fernandes shared on TikTok how he had entered through Dublin and spent three hours in immigration where he lied to officials about ‘only visiting’ rather than returning to London
On his public Instagram page, Micael posted pictures from his trip, including his flight from Shannon to London with ‘no immigration at all’
Micael also shared images from his travels to Limerick before flying to London from Shannon
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: ‘This is yet another example of this weak and incompetent Labour government losing control of our borders at a time when British taxpayers are struggling to make ends meet.
‘This pathetic Government is handing out money like confetti and immigrants are playing them for fools.
‘The Government has to clamp down on this abuse, either by getting the Irish government to conduct biometric checks at the Irish border or introducing entry checks for people coming from Ireland to the UK mainland.’
Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK, said that ‘hundreds had returned for a second bite at the cherry. This is utterly scandalous and the public will feel, justifiably, outraged.’
Since Labour’s flagship ‘one in, one out’ returns deal came into force on August 6, about 11,518 small boat migrants have reached Britain. Only 75 have been sent back, including an Iranian who came back to Britain on a small boat within a month.
The total number of small boats arrivals since Labour came to power last year has passed 60,000.
In the year to June, there were 9,227 assisted voluntary returns – more than twice as many as the previous year under the Tories of whom 4,810 were Brazilians.
One whistleblower told the MoS as many as half are back in Britain’s black economy within months, mocking the system as ‘so soft.’
Another TikTok user called Junia told how people could qualify for the £3,000 assisted return by overstaying a six-month tourist visa to the UK by just one day
The total number of small boats arrivals since Labour came to power has passed 60,000
In one case, a man who left £3,000 richer under the scheme last autumn had returned by January and was working as a rider for grocery delivery firm GoPuff.
One friend said: ‘Effectively he went back home for Christmas on the taxpayers’ dime.’
In online forums, Brazilians brag about how easy it is to beat Britain’s border system, sharing tips to slip back in undetected.
One post reads: ‘Go to France, from France you go to Dublin. In Dublin you take a bus to Belfast from there you take a bus to Glasgow and finally London.’
In one TikTok clip, a Brazilian man filmed in Soho described the same route, saying ‘many people who are deported’ take it back.
Another man, Micael Fernandes, said: ‘I entered through Dublin. I spent three hours in immigration.
‘They called me a liar and said I wouldn’t be allowed in, but I told them I wasn’t going back to London, only visiting Ireland. They gave me a five-day visa and let me in. God knows why, haha. But my real goal was to get to London.’
On his public Instagram page, he posted pictures from his trip, including the Irish visa, and said he then went to Limerick, then flew from Shannon to London with ‘no immigration at all’.
Another TikTok user called Junia told how people could qualify for the £3,000 assisted return by overstaying a six-month tourist visa to the UK by just one day.
And Brazilian Abel Mendes, 25, told The Mail on Sunday he and his girlfriend took £3,000 from the Home Office in June after three years working illegally in London for a food-delivery app after their tourist visas expired.
They used the money to marry in Brazil, then returned to Dublin three months later with the plan to come to the UK, but decided to stay in Ireland.
He said the most common way returnees avoid detection is by ‘getting a new passport in Brazil so there is no UK stamp.
‘Then they fly to Ireland, sometimes via France or Spain, to make it look like tourism. Irish immigration usually believes the story.’
He said the UK’s assumption of honesty makes it simple to bend the rules. ‘Maybe English people don’t think that way, but people from other countries, especially Brazil, take advantage of it.
‘The system should be a little more difficult. They need to be smarter. You can’t trust in people’s goodness with so much innocence.
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘Very few people re-enter the UK after a voluntary return, and we crack down hard on those who try. Our message to anyone thinking of abusing voluntary returns is clear: if you re-enter this country illegally, you will face arrest, prosecution and enforced removal.’
