During the call, Peter sent over a contract setting out how iCareer would provide “necessary endorsement materials” for a visa application.
The reporter asked if there was any possibility the application wouldn’t pass.
“There’s no such possibility,” Peter replied. “We keep working for you until we get the result.”
He added that the reporter would be refunded if her application failed because of material provided by iCareer.
Immigration lawyer Harjap Singh Bhangal said Peter had sent us “a contract to break the law”.
When we called Peter to confront him about the claims he had made to our undercover reporter, he denied he was willing to help people pretend to be artists or have artwork made.
“We are not doing anything wrong or illegal, all of our artists are real artists,” he told us.
iCareer, via lawyers, subsequently said that Peter’s employment had ended in early October, shortly before he spoke to the undercover reporter – adding that the company strongly denied “offering any visa services whatsoever”.
“The meeting described by the BBC was not authorised by iCareer,” it said. “We do not endorse the representations or purported services attributed to him.”
The company added it had been unaware that Peter and another employee had made social media posts promoting these services and would investigate.
It said that ADArt, which has the same owner as iCareer and was described by Peter to the undercover reporter as another division within the iCareer group, “signs artists and helps them curate exhibitions and develop professional relationships”.
Peter continued to be listed as an employee on iCareer’s website, and on his own LinkedIn profile, until the company was contacted by the BBC, which iCareer described as an oversight.
Our undercover meeting with him took place in the same Canary Wharf building where iCareer and ADArt are based, a co-working space. He also provided us with an iCareer brochure and sent a contract with a corporate iCareer email contact address.
