Agency that brought heavily indebted Indonesian workers to UK loses licence

London: A British recruitment agency that brought Indonesian farmworkers to the UK owing debts of thousands of pounds to foreign brokers has had its licence revoked by the labour exploitation watchdog.

AG Recruitment was once the largest supplier of international labour to British agriculture, bringing more than 1,450 Indonesians to pick fruit to supply British supermarkets in 2022.

After revelations in the Guardian that workers supplied by AG had taken on debts of up to £5,000 after paying unlicensed third parties in Indonesia, the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) announced an investigation. AG said it had known nothing about charging by third parties and had warned workers not to pay for jobs.

More than two years after the GLAA investigation was announced, its findings have still not been published. It said on Tuesday that it had stripped AG of its licence for failing to “act in a fit and proper manner”.

AG said the investigation had cleared it of wrongdoing and that the licence was revoked because of a previous decision by the Home Office.

Last year, the Home Office took away AG’s licence to operate as a seasonal worker sponsor over allegations that workers recruited by them had overstayed their visas.

Douglas Amesz, AG’s managing director, said of the GLAA investigation: “They found nothing. It took a very long time, and it was very detailed. There was no wrongdoing.”

Amesz admitted that workers he recruited had paid fees to third parties but said that he had done his best to prevent this. “Third parties get involved – unscrupulous people doing the wrong thing. That’s what happened. I had no knowledge of it.”

He added: “I can’t influence what I can’t see and what I can’t touch and that’s what happened in Indonesia. It’s happening now, still.”

Commenting on agricultural recruitment overseas, he said: “Indonesians, boy, oh boy, talk about corrupt. You know, eastern Europe’s corrupt. They’re all so corrupt. All the countries that we recruit from, there’s a high level of corruption and they just get better at it.”

When asked whether the workers he recruited who had paid fees to unlicensed brokers should be compensated, he said “on the one hand, I don’t”, because he told them in person “that they should never pay fees, that they should report it, that it’s against the law in the UK and no one should ever pay for a job … I told them all not to do it but they went and did it anyway.”

When asked if it was true that no workers had yet received compensation for fees paid to unlicensed brokers for jobs, Amesz said he could not comment.

Andy Hall, a migrant rights specialist, said: “Despite this important licence revocation, which resulted from the Guardian’s groundbreaking investigation and media coverage, no one has received any remediation for vulnerable migrant victims.”

Hall added: “Worse than that, as we saw with the UK food sector’s ill-informed recruitment from Indonesia again this year, the retailers, farms, scheme operators and more importantly the government have yet to learn any lessons from this scandal.”

The company is understood to have been added to the GLAA’s revocation register on Friday but lost its licence on 13 November. Amesz said he had initially appealed against the decision to revoke AG’s GLAA licence but had withdrawn the appeal on deciding to leave the recruitment industry altogether.

Amesz said it had faced an “unjust process” and that he and his wife had “been through hell and back”. He added: “AG is not being dissolved as a business, but we don’t operate any longer.”

A spokesperson for the GLAA said: “When an allegation is received, the GLAA will conduct a thorough investigation and this includes working with other government departments and enforcement agencies … AG Recruitment and Management’s licence was revoked after our investigation found there to be a breach of 1.1 of our licensing standards, which states: ‘The licence holder, Principal Authority and any person named or specified in the licence must at all times act in a fit and proper manner.’”

A breach of its licensing standards can include contravening any “requirements and standards of other regulatory authorities,” including UK Visas and Immigration.

The spokesperson added: “Following our decision to revoke, this decision was appealed, and later withdrawn by the licence holder. The GLAA strives to ensure that we operate a robust licensing scheme, and we will investigate any allegations reported to us regarding a breach in our standards.”