WalterSFO

I think it was a couple of years ago when the UK government started seizing money from illegal immigrants. (money from working illegally in the UK, as the money is considered to be profit/proceeds from a criminal activity, i.e. working illegally)

Even if the illegal immigrant voluntarily leaves the UK by plane/boat/train, the money is seized at the border. The agency that seized they money had to prove that the money was wholly earned from illegally working, of course.

Is this still being done? If so, what is the legal basis for it? Has it ever been challenged in the courts?

Raffles

If it is being done, you have the reason yourself - the proceeds of crime can be confiscated here.

WalterSFO

The UK is soooo different than the US.

Ldnn1

A slightly odd topic for this forum I think. Perhaps more suited to OMNI....

Are you asking because you have been, or you know someone who has been, working illegally?

WalterSFO

hypothetically, if it's the latter, what does that someone do?

lhrsfo

Not work illegally (which, incidentally, will also mean that person pays his/her share of tax).

WalterSFO

hopefully, this person will not raise a red flag, as he/she was only in the UK for 2 weeks and made no more than appx USD$3780 on plumbing jobs.

is this something they routinely check at LHR?

UKtravelbear

you never heard of 'civil forfeiture'. Rampant in certain parts of th US.

Even those totally innocent of any crime have had cash and goods confiscated just because law enforcements thinks - without evidence - that its the proceeds of crime.

Skatering

The recent ITV documentary on Heathrow had an incident of this happening, with a voluntary departure. So I guess it still happens.

mcgahat

Yep, I saw that and exactly what went through my mind also. Be good for the op to pull that episode up if they want to see how it went down at the airport.

GUWonder

It's very rare. I am very certain that most of those who have worked or are working without sufficient legal work authorization are not commonly stripped of cash when leaving the U.K. It's very rare, and most of the money ends up sent by more modern banking and other channels than hand carry attempts at airports.

HIDDY

What made him become an illegal immigrant in the first place? Pretty good earnings for replacing ballcocks.

Land-of-Miles

Under the Immigration Act of 2016 the Home Office will advise banks of lists of illegal immigrants. Banks will be required to match their customers against this list, identify matches, freeze funds and ultimately transfer such funds seized to the Government.

This will come into full effect in Q1 2018. This will obviously only impact UK held bank accounts (albeit some UK banks may extend this matching to their global account base and force closure of accounts outside UK jurisdiction even if they cannot seize the funds).

NWIFlyer

Unlikely though it is, I hope it is something they check, frankly - you must understand that UK wages are considerably lower than US ones, in general, and few people here have a gross annual wage of the £75,000 this equates to.

If someone working legally had earned that money and declared it, the Government would have taken around £1,000 in tax and National Insurance revenue. The figures you think are tiny are not to be sniffed at in UK terms, and if this fraud is discovered your friend should expect punitive action - recovery of the money, deportation and a long ban on re-entry is what I'd expect. They'd hardly be in a position to complain either because they can only have done it knowingly - you simply do not earn that amount of money merely for helping someone out for a few hours.

:D!

This is interesting and worrying. HSBC is (for now) a UK bank and from what I hear they are very keen on this data matching thing. Would they really close the HSBC US accounts of American citizens (who may have returned to the US) on the basis that they had overstayed their UK visas?