FOUR people have been arrested after Home Office Immigration Enforcement officers raided a restaurant in Leatherhead.
Acting on intelligence, officers visited the Lal Akash restaurant on Leatherhead High Street at around 2pm on Monday, where they carried out immigration checks on the six members of staff working there.
Five were found to have no right to work in the UK.
Four Bangladeshi men aged between 23 and 52 were arrested for over-staying their visas. They were all detained pending their removal from the UK.
A fifth Bangladeshi man, aged 32, who had an outstanding case with the Home Office, was escorted from the premises as he also had no right to work.
He will have to report to the Home Office on a regular basis while his case is decided and will face removal if he is found to have no right to remain in the country.
Assistant Director Paul Smith, from the Home Office's Surrey Immigration Enforcement Team, said: "This is the latest in a series of operations targeting illegal working in Surrey and more are planned.
"Where we find people living and working illegally in the UK we will seek to remove them.
"But illegal working fuels illegal immigration, so businesses which don't carry out the correct checks on their staff face being hit with heavy fines."
The restaurant will now have to provide proof to the Home Office that the correct right-to-work checks were carried out or it could face a fine of up to £10,000 per illegal worker.
Employers unsure of the steps they need to take to avoid employing illegal workers can visit http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/business-sponsors/preventing-illegal-working/ or they can call the Employers Helpline on 0300 123 4699.
For more information and contact details for Home Office Immigration Enforcement teams in the South East visit: http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/aboutus/your-region/london-se/local-immigration-teams/.
Anyone with information about immigration crime can contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 anonymously or visit http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org.
