Rani Paul Kashyap, and her husband were convicted in the Stafford Crown Court last week for breaching immigration law between February 2003 and March 2005.
LONDON: A middle-aged Indian-origin couple is convicted of running a racket to smuggle Indians in the garb of musicians and dancers, mostly from Punjab, and expected to face long imprisonment.
Rani Paul Kashyap, 44, and her 51-year-old husband Joginder were convicted in the Stafford Crown Court last week for breaching immigration law between February 2003 and March 2005.
The Tamworth-based couple will be sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court next month. The court had indicated that the couple may face long imprisonment.
Mark Wall, prosecuting lawyer, said the couple masterminded a plot to run the racket from their legitimate firm in Birmingham. He said the company, Sonia and Sunny Entertainments, was set up to supply Indian entertainers in the UK.
Wall said, "The prosecution do not think this business was entirely bogus because they quite legitimately provided entertainers on a regular basis."
But the company was used in part as a front to help people come into this country who were not genuine entertainers, he said.
"The way they tried to persuade the authorities they were genuine people was to provide genuine dates in Britain along with documents."
"But very many of these bookings for these bogus entertainers were forged to mislead the authorities. They applied for group work permits and supported people who applied to the British High Commission in New Delhi," Wall said.
"Once they had visas and work permits they were able to come to this country and many of those people just disappeared. Most of the concerts did not take place because they were bogus," Wall said.
"The prosecution cannot say, but there is a fair inference you can draw by the fact that they would have been paid for their services and salted money away. It was a conspiracy and a plan by the Kashyaps to get people into the United Kingdom from India who should never have been allowed in," the prosecuting lawyer said.
A report in the Birmingham Evening Mail reported that immigration officers raided four restaurants in Falmouth and escorted six people in handcuffs for questioning.
The raids on the Asha India, Gurkha, Bangkok House and Balti Indian were carried out after a tip-off that there might be illegal immigrants working there.
A spokesman said the raids had been intelligence led.
"We can confirm that the Border and Immigration Agency with support of the police conducted an operation in the Falmouth area on March 31," the spokesman said.
"This operation is consistent with the Border and Immigration Agency's commitment to target illegal people and intelligence-led operations are conducted every day of the week across the country to detect and remove those people who have breached immigration laws.
"The government has made it clear that it will take a robust approach to removing people from the country where they have no legal right to be here," he said.
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