Three arrested after raid on gang accused of helping migrants pretend to be gay to get asylum
BBC News · Billy Kenber · October 6, 2026 · bbc.co.uk Read the articleNot checkable
Check started on October 7, 2026
Claims
6 examinedTwo people were arrested at addresses in London this morning on suspicion of fraud and immigration offences, with Home Office officers also seizing phones, jewellery and thousands of pounds in cash. A third person was arrested on suspicion of being in the country illegally.
The only reports found are republications of this same BBC article; no Home Office statement or independent outlet reporting the 6 October raid was found in the sources consulted.
"We've got some intelligence that they can provide fake letters and documents, and they could charge anywhere between £1,000 and £4,500," Foster said.
The figures and the quote appear only in this BBC report and in copies of it; no independent source reporting them was found.
More than 100 asylum claims linked to the criminal network are being reviewed by the Home Office.
No Home Office publication or independent report of this review was found; the figure appears only in the BBC report and its republications.
Immigration judges have previously criticised evidence from Apanjon as unreliable or not credible and found that an applicant who claimed to have attended the group's events had submitted staged photographs.
The published tribunal decisions consulted did not mention Apanjon (one concerned a different Bangladeshi LGBT organisation); the rulings referred to could not be identified.
A Home Office spokesperson said it was continuing to review asylum claims linked to that reporting, which led to two arrests in May.
PinkNews (7 May 2026) and Lawyard (8 May 2026) report that two people, a woman in her forties and a man in his early twenties, were arrested in east London by Home Office Immigration Enforcement after the BBC investigation.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said "those faking persecution are beneath contempt and mock real victims who need protection".
The quote was found only in this BBC report and its republications; no official Home Office release carrying it was found.
Signals found: claims about the new raid rest on a single outlet and on home office statements · no independent confirmation of the 6 october arrests at the time of checking · the accused group's response is not reported
Measurement
No score, and that is not a low score. 83% of the claims examined could not be checked against any source. A middling figure would say "partly corroborated" of a text that could not be checked at all.
The text measurements are computed by code, not by the model: repeatable counts. How the score is calculated (in Italian)
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