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Daily Mail
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Con artist lambasts 'chaotic' UK asylum system on Albanian TV... while running scheme to defraud it
During a primetime interview on Albania's public broadcaster late last month, Eglantina Legisi gave a damning account of the treatment of immigrants in the UK. New arrivals from the Balkan state in Britain, she complained, were scared to register at schools and hospitals because they feared they would be deported. Many were already traumatised after crossing the Channel on small boats, she said. 'People should say they have mental health in order to get asylum,' she told the interviewer during her half-hour segment on the show Ura – meaning Bridge – which is dedicated to the Albanian diaspora. 'I met a young man who told me that he missed his trial date and told the social worker if he was going to be deported he would kill himself.' As a freelance translator working for the Home Office dealing with courts, prisons and the police, she considered herself an authority on the UK's failings in such matters. 'I deal with immigration cases on a daily basis,' she said. 'The asylum system is chaotic.' But unbeknown to viewers, at the very moment she was publicly berating the British authorities she was also plotting to fraudulently undermine the system she was criticising. Two days earlier she had given a detailed explanation to an undercover reporter about a money-spinning scam she runs with other Home Office interpreters to provide fake guarantors that dupe judges into granting bail for illegal immigrants. And hours before her TV appearance she had been arranging for the reporter to meet a solicitor who would take the case. The Mail first began investigating after monitoring posts by families of immigrants held in detention centres requesting guarantors on Facebook groups set up for Albanians in the UK. Eglantina Legisi responded to three of these, urging those needing a guarantor to get in touch with her. When an undercover reporter posing as the relative of an illegal immigrant in detention messaged her she said that, for a £3,000 payment plus £1,000 for the surety, he could hire another interpreter who also did work for the Home Office to act as a guarantor to vouch for him in a bail hearing. Ms Legisi subsequently met with a second undercover reporter near her home in Welling, Kent, where she lives with her teenage son after arriving in Dover on the back of a lorry 15 years ago. During the meeting she told the Mail she plans to return to Albania after five years when her son finishes university here, to be reunited with her husband who still lives there. In the meantime her work as a freelance translator for the Home Office means she is perfectly placed to organise an illicit scheme to help illegal migrants. Explaining how it works, she dismissed concerns that the judge might realise the immigrant and guarantor didn't know each other, saying that she and the solicitor would brief them ahead of the bail hearing and they would only be asked a few basic questions when in court. The guarantor would pretend to be a family friend rather than a direct relative to make it appear more plausible, she said. 'We prepare. Solicitor will prepare him. He knows to teach him what to say.' The authorities would trust the guarantor she was providing because she had a 'good job' and her husband ran a successful building company. The guarantor would tell the judge that the immigrant will live at their home if released, she said. 'The first thing is address because if they release him they want to know where he's going to stay. Even if he doesn't live in the guarantor's house in one week or two weeks, we find something, or you find the address, just fake address.' She said as long as he wasn't tagged, he could unofficially get a job. 'Everybody is working, my God, in restaurants and building, everywhere.' She said her translation work for the Home Office meant she knew 'everything' about the immigration system. 'We know how it works. We know the rules.' She said the solicitor she worked with knew they would be using a fake guarantor and 'everything' they were doing. Laughing, she added: 'He knows Albanians. Don't worry.' Four days after the meeting with her – and two days after her TV interview – our reporter met with solicitor Hassan Malik from HM Legal Ltd in his office in an industrial park in Rainham, Essex. Dressed in a chequered suit, he told us he would charge £3,500 to make a bail application and the reporter should discuss with Ms Legisi about the guarantor and 'whatever she's asking for that'. 'I will speak with Eglantina for the guarantor,' he said. 'The money for the guarantor, she will speak with whoever she speaks with… 'My legal fees are separate to whatever she's got to talk about.' When the reporter raised concerns about the migrant not knowing the guarantor, Mr Malik said, 'I will tell him what to expect' in court. 'That is not a problem. That's my headache.' When the reporter raised the concern a second time, the solicitor suggested the migrant and guarantor might know each other if the guarantor was 'Albanian as well'. Albania has a population of 2.7 million. And when the reporter raised it a third time, the solicitor suggested the journalist should become the guarantor. In fact, the only concern he raised was whether the detainee had previously been deported from the UK, which he said would be a 'complication'. He later denied any wrongdoing to the Mail, insisting he did not know and had not discussed any payments to a guarantor and that Miss Legisi's comments did not represent his or his firm's position. He said: 'I do not speak to the Financial Condition Supporters until after I am provided the contact details by the detainees or once my contact details are passed on to the FCS.
Japan Times
23-04-2025
- Sport
- Japan Times
More than just training: Sumo's open practices are intense — and entertaining
Last week's column detailed how regional tours continue to provide wider access to sumo in an era when demand for regular tournament tickets far outstrips supply. But while the jungyō are an excellent introduction to the sport, and feature all kinds of interesting aspects of sumo not seen in regular meets, there is one element of the tours that sometimes leaves hardcore fans dissatisfied. No matter how entertaining the matchups may be, the fact that there is little at stake in what are essentially exhibition bouts means the intensity of jungyō matches falls well short of what is usually seen during sumo's six yearly honbasho. For fans unable to get seats at one of those bimonthly tournaments, however, there is another option. Normally held behind closed doors and accessible only to members of the Sumo Press Club, the Yokozuna Deliberation Council (YDC) practice, known as Soken in Japanese, is occasionally opened up to the general public. This year the Soken, which will be held ahead of the Summer Basho, is the one to which fans can gain admittance. Scheduled to take place at Tokyo's Kokugikan on May 2, the practice is free to attend and should feature all of the sport's top wrestlers participating in a series of training bouts that have a higher intensity than those seen during regional tours. Although banzuke ranking positions aren't at stake, the fact that the practice is so close to a real tournament ensures most of the rikishi are in advanced stages of preparation and are giving it their all in an effort to reach full match fitness. For yokozuna, and to a lesser extent ozeki, there is the added motivation of needing to perform at a high standard to avoid incurring criticism from YDC members. Adding to the atmosphere of seriousness is the fact that, even when the event is open to the public, cheering or shouting out support for wrestlers is discouraged. The Japan Sumo Association (JSA) asks attendees to watch the practice in silence, and not use phones. Gates open at 8 a.m. and, going on past years, proceedings should conclude around 11 a.m. One point to be aware of is that while Kokugikan can hold 11,000 people, the upper floor normally isn't open to the public for Soken, and if the first floor reaches capacity, no one else will be admitted. Ura is mobbed by wrestlers vying to be next during a Yokozuna Deliberation Council practice in 2016. While the Soken is normally conducted in an air of solemn focus and seriousness, there are occasional moments of levity. | John Gunning Because of that, and the fact that it's first-come, first-served in terms of seating, it's advisable to arrive at the venue early to secure positions close to the wrestlers. One pro tip is to try and find seating on the front side (behind the white cloth covered table at which the YDC members sit) as wrestlers standing around the ring can block views of what's going on in the ring from the east, west and back sides of the arena. Physical checks for sumo's newest batch of recruits also take place at Kokugikan on May 2, giving those in attendance at the Soken an opportunity to see some of the future stars of sumo take their very first steps as professionals. In terms of the number of high-level sumo contests, it's hard to beat the Soken. On no other occasion can you see all the sports top-rankers engage in anything like the volume of bouts that take place at the YDC practice. Pre-tournament tensions not only contribute toward ensuring fierce fights, but can sometimes lead to tempers flaring. Two decades ago, notoriously fiery yokozuna Asashoryu engaged in a series of heated battles with Russian standout Roho and Hakuho, then an up-and-comer. Normally sumo practices of such intensity only take place inside a single stable or perhaps during training sessions among ichimon (groups of aligned stables). With some of the more promising third-tier wrestlers also staying on to train with those in the second division (or second with third), the Soken offers an early opportunity to evaluate the career prospects of young talent or college stars who earned advanced starting positions in the professional ranks. Being able to watch the best wrestlers currently in sumo duking it out for an hour or more isn't the only thrill for sumo fans when it comes to the Soken. Numerous stars of the past can be seen as many, if not most, stablemasters are in attendance, and the YDC practice often brings out former legends no longer in the JSA such as Konishiki. While the Soken is normally conducted in an air of solemn focus and seriousness, there are occasional moments of levity. Throughout sumo's history there have always been wrestlers who can't resist hamming it up or playing to the crowd no matter the situation. With training bouts often following a 'king of the hill' pattern, winners are mobbed by those trying to be picked next. Sometimes 10 or more men will immediately rush into the center of the ring at the same time in an attempt to get the attention of the winner. Now and again, a showman will take that to extremes by bear-hugging the winner or grabbing his face with both hands in an attempt to prevent him from picking someone else. Such lighthearted interludes are the exception rather than the rule though, and for the most part the Soken is conducted in impressive near-silence, only broken by the sounds of exertion from the sport's top competitors. With Hoshoryu having withdrawn midway through his first tournament at sumo's highest rank in March, the upcoming YDC practice is sure to see a refocused version of the sport's lone yokozuna, and that should provide a spectacle to satisfy the most demanding of fans.
