Barbers fined nearly £3m for hiring illegal workers

Barber shops have been fined nearly £3million for employing illegal workers – as calls grow for a fresh crackdown. 

Sixty high street businesses received penalties of up to £90,000 after raids by Immigration Enforcement officers.

The Home Office regularly publishes lists of companies caught employing workers with no right to work in the UK.

Barbers alone received £2,735,000 worth of fines in the year to September, according to an analysis by the Daily Mail – with salons and car washes also featuring prominently. 

A 50 per cent rise in the number of barbers since 2018 has prompted suspicions some could be linked to organised crime. Many brand themselves as Turkish, but are often run by Kurds, Iraqis and Iranians. 

Last year, hundreds of premises were raided in an operation led by the National Crime Agency (NCA), leading to dozens of arrests for crimes ranging from money laundering and drug dealing to modern slavery. 

The Home Office figures show two barbers – Master Fade Barber in Peterhead and Brothers Barber Shop in Hereford – were fined £90,000 each last year for employing illegal workers. This was the maximum penalty handed out. 

The city with the most barbers falling foul of Immigration Enforcement was London, with eight, followed by Glasgow, which had three. 

Two of the barbers that received fines – Fade Zone Barber and New Style Barber – were on the same street in Bodmin, Cornwall. 

The ability to work without papers has been cited as a major pull factor in drawing illegal migrants to Britain.  

Fines start at £45,000 per worker, rising to £60,000 for repeat offenders. 

Robert Bates, Research Director at the Centre for Migration Control, called for a crackdown on the Turkish-style barbers crowding Britain’s high streets.

‘It is little surprise that immigration enforcement has identified a strong link between certain types of barber shop and illegal working,’ he told the Daily Mail.

‘Much more should be done to clamp down on these types of business that seem to be blighting almost every high street in the country.’ 

‘Those found to be employing illegal migrants should be facing much tougher sanctions and criminal prosecutions against unscrupulous directors should be pursued far more regularly.’

Cut-throat competition: The towns saturated with barber shops 

*The shops in Porth and Sedgley pictured above are not accused of wrongdoing 

Several towns now complain of being ‘overrun’ with barbers and hair salons.

Sedgley in the West Midlands now has more than 30 – equivalent to one for every 390 people. 

The tiny town of Porth in South Wales got its latest barber shop last year, bringing the total to 14, or one per 400 residents. 

Dozens of letters of objection failed to convince members of Rhondda Cynon Taf’s (RCT) planning committee to refuse the application from a Kurdish businessman. 

While none of the shops in either town have been linked to crime, locals fear that the rapid rise in numbers is unsustainable and risks driving out other stores. 

During a debate before Rhondda Cynon Taf’s planning committee, Councillor Loretta Tomkinson pointed out that many barbers were struggling to turn a profit.

Labour has now promised to hand councils new powers to block unwanted stores. 

While unveiling its plans to give councils the ability to block unwanted shops, Labour namechecked betting shops, vape stores and ‘fake barbers’.

Steve Reed, the Housing Secretary, said locals were right to be suspicious about barbers that remained open despite having few customers.

‘In many places in the country, you’ll get people reporting many barbers suddenly opening up and not many people going in and getting their haircut,’ he told LBC at the time. 

‘Who knows what they front for, but neither the council nor the community has been able to stop them proliferating, but now they will have the power to restrict them.’

Asked if he thought the shops were being used for criminal activities, such as drug dealing or money laundering, he said: ‘Well, we know that some of them are.

‘I’m not going to say that about all of them, but some are. 

‘The key point is that communities need the power to stop them proliferating where that’s a problem.’

A Home Office spokesperson said: ‘Illegal working undermines honest employers, undercuts local wages and fuels organised immigration crime. This government will not stand for it.

‘In October, Immigration Enforcement joined the National Crime Agency and police in an operation targeting barbershops and other cash-based businesses which are commonly linked with illegal working, resulting in almost 700 arrests.

‘Since coming into power, the Government has increased immigration enforcement action to the highest level in British history, with an 83 per cent rise in illegal working arrests and 77% rise in raids.’