Daily Mail:
- Ashar Rathore served 7 months of two-year sentence
- Given taxpayers’ money to get out of jail and leave UK
- He used cash to set up shop offering passports, visas… and ‘any enquiry related to the laws of cricket’
By Nick Enoch
Last updated at 5:00 PM on 23rd January 2012
Fraudster Ashar Ali Rathore has been paid with taxpayers’ money to return to Pakistan
An illegal immigrant and sham marriage ringleader who left prison early with a huge pay-off has used the money to set up a new business in his homeland – offering UK passports.
Ashar Ali Rathore, 33, came to the UK with his wife Nadia Qadri, 34, on student visas then faked marriages to two Polish people to gain residency.
The fraudster was jailed for conspiring to breach immigration law, but was then handed £1,500 of taxpayers’ money as part of a Government scheme for rehabilitating foreign nationals.
He had only served seven months of his two-year sentence.
Today, it emerged Rathore has used the money to set up Xpress Solutions – a company providing UK passports, visas and driving licences in Kotli, Pakistan, his native country.
Among its other services, it also bizarrely offers ‘any enquiry related to the laws of cricket’.
He is not currently under investigation by the Pakistani authorities.
Jonathan Isaby, political director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, branded the payout a ‘sick golden goodbye’.
