A FORMER restaurant boss who was behind one of Blackburn’s best-known banqueting halls has been banned from being a company director for six years in the wake of an immigration raid.

Mohammed Nadeem Shafi, 45, has given an undertaking to the courts after 10 officers from the Home Office immigration enforcement team descended on Mai’da in December 2013.

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Five workers at the Eanam premises – two Pakistan natives, one from India, a Trinidad and Tobago woman and a Nepalese man – were detained amid suspicions that they were working in the UK illegally.

An inquiry found that all five were being falsely employed, paid cash in hand, and no checks had been made regarding their immigration status. None of the five figured on the company’s pay-as-you-earn tax records either.

Later the immigration team issued a £15,000 civil penalty to Mr Shafi, of Kitchener Road, Forest Gate, London, who also ran a sister restaurant at Bethnal Green in the capital, in respect of three of the illegal workers.

But this fine was never paid and Mr Shafi, who traded under the name Gazal Sweets and Restaurants, placed the company into voluntary administration in May last year. Liquidators were appointed in May this year and a winding-up order was sought.

Mr Shafi had been involved with the Blackburn restaurant when his company acquired the site from the Shere Khan chain in the summer of 2008.

He is no longer involved. Robert Clarke, the northern investigations head for the Insolvency Service, said: “We rigorously pursue directors who fail to pay fines imposed by the government for breaking employment and immigration laws.

“We have worked closely with the Home Office to achieve this disqualification. The director sought an unfair advantage over his competitors by employing individuals who did not have the right to work in the UK, in breach of his duties.

“The public has a right to expect that those who break the law will face the consequences. Running a limited company means you have statutory protections as well as obligations. If you fail to comply with your obligations then the Insolvency Service will investigate you.”

No one from Mai’da was available to comment.