BBC's undercover investigation into the immigration system: Part 1Bogus websites, staged protests and pretend atheists: Inside the fake asylum industry

From fake news websites to staged political protests and bogus medical conditions, asylum seekers and the advisers helping them are using an array of fabricated evidence to bolster their fake claims.

It all amounts to a sham industry, which includes charging migrants for advice on how to pose as gay to claim asylum, as exposed by the first part of our undercover investigation into the immigration system.

Other techniques include paying to write articles in atheist magazines and hiring someone to pretend to be a same-sex partner.

At an office off the busy Mile End Road, in east London, on a Tuesday evening in early April, our undercover reporter was receiving an instruction course in how to apply for asylum.

Posing as a Bangladeshi student who had just dropped out of his university course, he had said he was looking at asylum as a way to stay in the country.

Now Zahid Hasan Akhand, who introduced himself as a barrister, was talking him through the different options and how to dupe the Home Office.

Gay, atheist or political activist

There were three routes to asylum for someone in his situation: as someone who faced persecution for their sexual orientation, their religious beliefs or their political views.

Akhand said he would handle the legal side, but it was up to the undercover reporter to choose whether he wanted to pretend to be gay, an atheist or a political activist.

All of the options would take work. For a legal fee of £1,500, Akhand would help him in "preparing your application, preparing you for the interview, taking repeated mock interviews".

But the reporter would also need to create evidence in order to convince the Home Office that he was not faking his claim.

Akhand said he knew people who could help with that and would introduce him "if you cannot find any other way".

It would cost between £2,000 and £3,000 and the type of evidence needed would depend on which path he chose.

If the reporter wanted to declare himself an atheist, the process would start with making posts on social media insulting Islam or the Prophet Muhammad.

"Religious clerics will start making comments threatening to kill you. Then you will see that your evidence has been created," Akhand said.

He would be introduced by the lawyer to atheist organisations in the UK and in Bangladesh that ran online blogs or magazines where, for a fee, he could make posts, again lending credibility to his claims. He suggested the reporter could use AI tools, such as ChatGPT, to write blog or article posts.

He would also need to attend events organised by groups for former Muslims and speak out during them because "this is not the age of posts anymore, it is the age of live videos".

Akhand suggested a possible story to tell the Home Office.

"You would say that you became an atheist after coming here. You were not one in Bangladesh," he said.

He later suggested "you could have written under a pseudonym if you were in Bangladesh".

Akhand said there is "no way to know who is an atheist and who is not…You just told me that you are not an atheist, which means you are not an atheist. But there is no system to check these things."

The political route was difficult, Akhand said, requiring a legal case to be made against the applicant in their home country.

Also Read: Legal advisers help migrants pose as gay to get asylum

Much easier, he said, was pretending to be gay "because they will not dig too much into your past story".

"For gay cases, it's private, but politics and atheism are public," he said.

"So establishing that is a bit difficult."

He said he could "connect you with people we know who do these things".

For a fake gay claim, "the kind of evidence they provide includes membership in different clubs, taking you to different clubs, since in the asylum interview you will be asked which clubs you attend and similar questions. You will also be given a partner, and that partner will provide a letter saying that 'yes, he was my partner'.

"If you go to those associations, you will not get caught out. Most of the people there are not gay," Akhand said.

The reporter asked if he had dealt with similar cases before "where you know that he is not gay or not atheist, but later the case was successful?"

"Everyone is being successful, God willing," Akhand responded. "If you listen and get the evidence arranged properly, it will be successful."

He told him to "first decide whether you will do it on atheism grounds or on gay grounds…then I will draw you a full outline".

Akhand qualified as a barrister in 2022 but does not hold a licence to practise, meaning he is what is known as a non-practising or unregistered barrister.

It is illegal for someone in that position to refer to themselves as a barrister in connection to legal services.

Akhand describes himself on LinkedIn as working at a law firm, Lextel Solicitors, and appeared on the company's website at the time of the meeting. The website has now been taken down.

Lextel said Akhand was not an employee and that he had stopped working for the firm around two years ago, but they had left him on their website because he had not given any "formal notice to quit".

They said they had no record of the meeting taking place in their office and said Akhand was associated with other businesses in the same building.

Akhand denied "knowing and deliberately behaving in a way that is illegal or dishonest". He said the meeting was only introductory, the journalist wasn't a client and he didn't believe he had given regulated immigration advice.

He also said that he hadn't said that he was a "practising" barrister and that his professional affiliation with Lextel Solicitors had "ceased a long time ago".

Fake websites

Akhand is far from the only adviser out there who is willing to help bring fake claims.

We've uncovered a string of fake asylum applications that were brought with the help of a different Bangladeshi lawyer between 2018 and 2021. Some, and seemingly many, of these claims succeeded.

The claims were generally made on the basis that the applicants were both atheists and also gay or bisexual.

The evidence submitted by the applicants includes online articles posted on what purported to be genuine news websites.

In fact, internet records show the network of websites were set up by someone connected to the group.

Some of the articles refer to the applicants supposedly having been named in lawsuits filed in the courts in Bangladesh because of their political or religious activism.

There are no other references to these lawsuits on genuine websites and lawsuits are hard to trace if any Home Office officials wanted to check because the Bangladesh courts used a primarily paper-based record system.

Other claimants are named in news articles on the connected websites that describe how they have married a gay partner and this has provoked homophobic criticism or abuse from unnamed third parties.

The websites appear to have been created for the purpose of publicising the alleged threats to the asylum applicants and many were set up by a caseworker at an east London law firm.

Other than a small number of articles naming specific asylum applicants, the websites are largely filled with plagiarised articles that have been copied from major news wires and genuine Bangladeshi media outlets.

One of the websites lists an "editor-in-chief" who has no other online footprint such as a LinkedIn profile or social media accounts.

Political protests

Several of the asylum applicants also cited as evidence posts they had written for a Bangladeshi gay rights website which was only active for a few years during the applications and which has since been taken offline.

Other fake claims are alleged to have used photos from political protests staged purely to have photographs taken of those taking part, which could then be submitted to the Home Office.

We heard from several asylum seekers who said they'd been encouraged by advisers they were paying to bring their claim to visit a GP and pretend they were depressed. They could then use their medical records as evidence to help their fake asylum claim. One even pretended to be living with HIV.

As well as helping create evidence, advisers also promise to train fake claimants on how to behave during crucial interviews with the Home Office, where their applications are assessed.

One adviser told our undercover reporter they would issue a sample questionnaire to show recent questions that other applicants had been asked in order to help them prepare.

During an event in Rochdale, one asylum seeker told an undercover reporter that his solicitor had even coached him on his facial expressions and reaction in front of Home Office officials.

"She told me to cry," he said. "I replied, 'I can't cry'. I told her 'I'm not capable of overacting'."