Daily Record: Fake AIDS-tester targetting refugees in Scotland
dailyrecord | 14.03.2003 16:45
AN ASYLUM seeker is selling false AIDS-test results to refugees for £1500 a time.
Zimbabwean Maggie Sawyer provides immigrants with documents saying they are HIV- positive to help their bid to stay in Scotland.
Asylum seekers have exceptional grounds to remain in Britain if they are being treated for HIV or AIDS on the NHS and can prove there is no medical treatment in their home countries. The medical documents
are like gold dust to healthy refugees desperate to boost their chances of winning permission to stay in Scotland.
And Sawyer, 36, is only too happy to exploit the demand for false papers among her fellow asylum seekers.
The mother-of-three maintains a respectable facade, representing a charity which supports genuine HIV and AIDS patients' asylum cases.
She has even attended women's conferences and lobbied MSPs on behalf of infected women and children.
But Sawyer - who is HIV positive - also runs a sick money-making enterprise off the backs of desperate refugees.
We found her out when a Record investigation team posed as asylum seekers looking for ways to improve their chances of staying in Scotland.
We approached Sawyer claiming we had been told she was the person who could help us - and we were swiftly offered false AIDS diagnoses for hard cash.
Sawyer told us: "I can get you the stuff to say you have HIV - a false test. I know people who can arrange it.
"I'll handle it all. I can get the paperwork and everything you need for a total cost of £1500."
Sawyer and her three children are facing deportation from the UK after immigration authorities rejected her claim for political asylum.
They later discovered she was working illegally in Glasgow.
She dreamed up her cash-for-AIDS-papers con to get money after officials stopped her benefits.
A female source said: "Maggie claims she can fix it for anyone to get a false HIV case for £1500.
"She said she pays a Nigerian contact £1500 in London to arrange it in the hope that the authorities will be more sympathetic to asylum seekers.
"She claims the contact arranges for a blood sample from someone who really is HIV positive to be submitted for testing."
Sawyer has enlisted campaigners at Glasgow-based HIV support charity Body Positive Strathclyde into fighting her case to remain in Scotland.
She even represented them on Monday at an International Women's Day conference in Edinburgh with Social Justice Minister Margaret Curran.
There, Sawyer handed out leaflets promoting the charity and protested that African HIV women would die from the lack of medical treatment if sent back to their homelands.
Sawyer herself attends the Brownlee Centre - an HIV outpatients' clinic at Gartnavel Hospital in Glasgow.
She told the conference: "While many women are busy enjoying Women's Day there are others who are crying out for help, and suffering.
"Some of these women are facing deportation and some have children with HIV.
"If they are sent back to Africa there is no treatment for them. It is like sending them back to the gas chamber. Most of the women who are HIV positive have been raped yet when they come here on a political issue they are refused to be allowed to stay."
But just hours earlier, Sawyer had been using the terrible illness to make money from refugees.
She told our undercover reporter she could arrange a bogus HIV test for a female African we claimed was trying to get from Uganda to Scotland.
She said that for a cash payment, the fraud would be carried out with the help of a Jamaican fixer based in Glasgow and a London-based fraudster.
Sawyer said: "The guy is in London who does this, I know him. I tell the Glasgow go- between I want A-B-C and he knows me.
"But I'll be helping, I'll go through with them. I did it already with three ladies from Kenya and Ghana. Everything is included in £1500."
Another of Sawyer's rackets is selling false passports for £100 to African women trying to flee their homeland.
She told one of our investigators she could get her a false Malawi passport in order to help her travel to Britain.
The scam involves a contact on the Malawi side providing forged documents.
Sawyer told us: "I can get a passport no problem.
"As long as she has money to travel to Malawi and £100 to pay for the passport, I can help - definitely.
"I can get her a new Malawian passport because now in Malawi, they don't require a visa.
"She comes here as if she's coming on holiday. When the lady is in Malawi I tell you where you put the money in an account.
"All you have to tell me is when is she ready. I make a phone call to Malawi and that's it."
Sawyer has told friends she lived in Zimbabwe and South Africa before fleeing to Britain two years ago.
Her three sons - aged 15, 11 and five - joined her later from Zimbabwe and immigration authorities put the family up in a high- rise flat on Glasgow's south side last year.
But her application for asylum was unsuccessful and she now faces deportation after losing an appeal. Sawyer complains that the National Asylum Support Service stopped her cash benefits after discovering she was working illegally.
The Record has discovered that Sawyer was working for Monarch Security Ltd as a security guard at a Glasgow health centre.
A spokesman for the company in Tollcross confirmed they had employed Sawyer for two months last year.
He said: "We thought she was above board but she was unreliable and didn't turn up at jobs. We just got rid of her."
Last night, a female former friend of Sawyer said: "I have a lot of sympathy for asylum seekers but what Maggie Sawyer is doing is a disgrace.
"She is doing nothing to help the image of genuine refugees in need."
When we confronted Sawyer with the results of our inquiries, she refused to comment.
But a spokesman for Body Positive pledged to investigate.
Senior project worker Collins McKay said: "If someone set up a scam outside, it's personal responsibility - but we would find it unacceptable."
RECORD INVESTIGATION
THE AIDS ASYLUM TAPES
Record : The fake HIV test you mentioned, you can get us that?
Sawyer: I can do this for you. You pay £1500. I have a guy who arranges the test and I'll organise things
Record: What do we get for the money?
Sawyer: Everything - the paperwork is included in the £1500. All I need is the money - it's as simple as that.
Zimbabwean Maggie Sawyer provides immigrants with documents saying they are HIV- positive to help their bid to stay in Scotland.
Asylum seekers have exceptional grounds to remain in Britain if they are being treated for HIV or AIDS on the NHS and can prove there is no medical treatment in their home countries. The medical documents
are like gold dust to healthy refugees desperate to boost their chances of winning permission to stay in Scotland.
And Sawyer, 36, is only too happy to exploit the demand for false papers among her fellow asylum seekers.
The mother-of-three maintains a respectable facade, representing a charity which supports genuine HIV and AIDS patients' asylum cases.
She has even attended women's conferences and lobbied MSPs on behalf of infected women and children.
But Sawyer - who is HIV positive - also runs a sick money-making enterprise off the backs of desperate refugees.
We found her out when a Record investigation team posed as asylum seekers looking for ways to improve their chances of staying in Scotland.
We approached Sawyer claiming we had been told she was the person who could help us - and we were swiftly offered false AIDS diagnoses for hard cash.
Sawyer told us: "I can get you the stuff to say you have HIV - a false test. I know people who can arrange it.
"I'll handle it all. I can get the paperwork and everything you need for a total cost of £1500."
Sawyer and her three children are facing deportation from the UK after immigration authorities rejected her claim for political asylum.
They later discovered she was working illegally in Glasgow.
She dreamed up her cash-for-AIDS-papers con to get money after officials stopped her benefits.
A female source said: "Maggie claims she can fix it for anyone to get a false HIV case for £1500.
"She said she pays a Nigerian contact £1500 in London to arrange it in the hope that the authorities will be more sympathetic to asylum seekers.
"She claims the contact arranges for a blood sample from someone who really is HIV positive to be submitted for testing."
Sawyer has enlisted campaigners at Glasgow-based HIV support charity Body Positive Strathclyde into fighting her case to remain in Scotland.
She even represented them on Monday at an International Women's Day conference in Edinburgh with Social Justice Minister Margaret Curran.
There, Sawyer handed out leaflets promoting the charity and protested that African HIV women would die from the lack of medical treatment if sent back to their homelands.
Sawyer herself attends the Brownlee Centre - an HIV outpatients' clinic at Gartnavel Hospital in Glasgow.
She told the conference: "While many women are busy enjoying Women's Day there are others who are crying out for help, and suffering.
"Some of these women are facing deportation and some have children with HIV.
"If they are sent back to Africa there is no treatment for them. It is like sending them back to the gas chamber. Most of the women who are HIV positive have been raped yet when they come here on a political issue they are refused to be allowed to stay."
But just hours earlier, Sawyer had been using the terrible illness to make money from refugees.
She told our undercover reporter she could arrange a bogus HIV test for a female African we claimed was trying to get from Uganda to Scotland.
She said that for a cash payment, the fraud would be carried out with the help of a Jamaican fixer based in Glasgow and a London-based fraudster.
Sawyer said: "The guy is in London who does this, I know him. I tell the Glasgow go- between I want A-B-C and he knows me.
"But I'll be helping, I'll go through with them. I did it already with three ladies from Kenya and Ghana. Everything is included in £1500."
Another of Sawyer's rackets is selling false passports for £100 to African women trying to flee their homeland.
She told one of our investigators she could get her a false Malawi passport in order to help her travel to Britain.
The scam involves a contact on the Malawi side providing forged documents.
Sawyer told us: "I can get a passport no problem.
"As long as she has money to travel to Malawi and £100 to pay for the passport, I can help - definitely.
"I can get her a new Malawian passport because now in Malawi, they don't require a visa.
"She comes here as if she's coming on holiday. When the lady is in Malawi I tell you where you put the money in an account.
"All you have to tell me is when is she ready. I make a phone call to Malawi and that's it."
Sawyer has told friends she lived in Zimbabwe and South Africa before fleeing to Britain two years ago.
Her three sons - aged 15, 11 and five - joined her later from Zimbabwe and immigration authorities put the family up in a high- rise flat on Glasgow's south side last year.
But her application for asylum was unsuccessful and she now faces deportation after losing an appeal. Sawyer complains that the National Asylum Support Service stopped her cash benefits after discovering she was working illegally.
The Record has discovered that Sawyer was working for Monarch Security Ltd as a security guard at a Glasgow health centre.
A spokesman for the company in Tollcross confirmed they had employed Sawyer for two months last year.
He said: "We thought she was above board but she was unreliable and didn't turn up at jobs. We just got rid of her."
Last night, a female former friend of Sawyer said: "I have a lot of sympathy for asylum seekers but what Maggie Sawyer is doing is a disgrace.
"She is doing nothing to help the image of genuine refugees in need."
When we confronted Sawyer with the results of our inquiries, she refused to comment.
But a spokesman for Body Positive pledged to investigate.
Senior project worker Collins McKay said: "If someone set up a scam outside, it's personal responsibility - but we would find it unacceptable."
RECORD INVESTIGATION
THE AIDS ASYLUM TAPES
Record : The fake HIV test you mentioned, you can get us that?
Sawyer: I can do this for you. You pay £1500. I have a guy who arranges the test and I'll organise things
Record: What do we get for the money?
Sawyer: Everything - the paperwork is included in the £1500. All I need is the money - it's as simple as that.
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