Adept and Agile, a Nepali recruitment agency, has lost its Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) licence after investigations revealed that workers were charged exorbitant job-finding fees before arriving in the UK, GLAA said in a statement on Monday.

“GLAA officers have revoked the licence of Adept and Agile with immediate effect,” the statement reads. “This means that the business will no longer be able to supply workers into GLAA-regulated sectors of agriculture, horticulture, shellfish gathering, and any associated processing or packaging.”

The authority, which licences gangmasters, companies that supply labour, in such sectors, had suspended Adept and Agile’s licence earlier in January after a UK court handed a Slavery and Trafficking Risk Order to its two directors on suspicion of exploiting workers by charging exorbitant recruitment fees.

The accused directors Pravin Rimal and Resham Gurung, however, denied the accusations.

Gurung claimed that they have never sent a single Nepali citizen to work in the UK. “We have nothing to say about the decision,” Gurung told the Post in January.

According to the GLAA, they failed its fit and proper test after being handed an interim Slavery and Trafficking Risk Order (STRO) in December 2022.

“GLAA investigators spoke to Nepalese workers recruited by Adept and Agile as part of its investigations,” the statement reads. “More than 100 confirmed that they had paid between 12,000 pounds (around Rs1.9 million) and 13,000 pounds in order to find work in the UK.”

“They told the GLAA that the fee was paid directly to Gurung, a relative of his, or someone at the offices of Adept and Agile.”

Work-finding fees are explicitly banned under the GLAA licensing standards.

Several workers also told the GLAA that they were instructed not to tell anyone about the fee they paid, otherwise they would be sent back home to Nepal.

Published on: 14 March 2023 | The Kathmandu Post