Barton Mills car wash owner fined £180k for illegal workers

A hand car wash owner has been fined £180,000 and banned as a company director for seven years after employing four illegal workers.

Vittorio Dragoti, 28, of Queensway, Mildenhall, Suffolk, hired workers from Romania at the Fiveways Car Wash on the Fiveways Roundabout near the A11 at Barton Mills.

The workers were discovered when immigration enforcement officials visited the car wash last year, according to the Insolvency Service.

Dave Magrath, director of investigation and enforcement services at the Insolvency Service, said company directors had “clear statutory obligations to recruit people” with the right to work in the UK.

Officials found the Romanian men, aged between 18 and 49, with no right to work in the UK when the car wash was visited last April.

The Insolvency Service said Dragoti was the sole director of Vito’s Car Care Limited, the company in charge of the car wash, and the fine remained unpaid.

He is prevented from becoming involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company, without the permission of a court.

“Vittorio Dragoti’s disqualification as a company director is a result of ongoing close collaboration between the Insolvency Service and our partners at the Home Office to clamp down on rogue directors,” Mr Magrath added.

Cheryl Daldry, the Home Office’s East of England immigration compliance and enforcement lead, said the case was a “great example of the serious consequences that are in store for business owners who fail to carry out checks on individuals they hire to ensure they have the right to work in the UK”.

“Dragoti flouted our employment and immigration rules by employing multiple people with no right to work in the UK, resulting in long-term enforcement action against himself and his business,” she added.