Home Office investigates firm linked to religious sect over immigration visas

The Home Office is investigating a company linked to a religious sect based in Cheshire over its use of immigration visas.The company under investigation is linked to the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (AROPL), a sect that blends tenets of Islam with conspiracy theories about the Illuminati and aliens controlling US presidents. Followers believe the sect’s leader, Abdullah Hashem, can cure the sick and make the moon disappear. About 100 of his followers live in a former orphanage in Crewe, in the north-west of England.The community moved to the UK in 2021, after transferring their headquarters from Sweden, where immigration authorities investigated several companies linked to the sect and issued deportation orders to dozens of its members.Now, immigration officials in the UK are looking into a company linked to the sect over its use of skilled worker visas to bring people into the country.The investigation, which was confirmed by the Home Office, is understood to centre on the use of visas by AROPL Studios, a company set up in 2021 to produce social media and YouTube videos about the sect’s teachings.Data released to the Guardian by the Home Office showed that AROPL Studios had issued 12 skilled worker visas between 2022 and 2025.Skilled worker visas were introduced in 2020 and are designed to allow companies to hire foreign workers with specialist skills for a specific role. In September 2025 the Home Office announced it was cracking down on sponsors who were found to be abusing the immigration system.AROPL denied using illegal immigration practices. Through lawyers, it said the immigration status of all its members and workers was lawful. It added that it was unaware of any investigation.Hashem, who habitually wears a black beanie hat, has built a following through slick online videos, with AROPL’s YouTube channel notching up more than 31m views. Some of these set out his teachings, while others detail the group’s belief that Hashem has performed miracles including bringing a woman back from near death, curing a follower’s arthritis and making angels fly across the sky.Hashem has previously spoken about the international nature of the group based in the UK. In one video published at the end of last year, he said: “We have people here from Malaysia. We’ve got people here from Azerbaijan. We’ve got people here from Algeria, from Morocco, from Tunisia, from Egypt … We’ve got people from every continent on the globe almost, right? And we got [people] from about a hundred different countries and they’re all living together peacefully, harmoniously, getting married to one another.”The Home Office’s investigation is not the first that the group has faced. The Guardian reviewed judgments from multiple immigration court decisions in Sweden, where immigration authorities found that three AROPL-linked companies were “rogue employers”, hiring AROPL followers to allow them to have Swedish residency.The Swedish migration court issued 69 deportation orders for AROPL members. AROPL told the Guardian that the group had already left the country and moved to the UK when the orders were handed down.In public statements, Hashem decried the migration court’s rulings as racist and religious persecution.AROPL’s lawyers said any suggestion that visas were used improperly to bring followers to the UK was false, and that it had the paperwork to prove it.It said it was a peaceful, open and transparent movement derived from Shia Islam and that it had been recognised as a religion by multiple international bodies. It said that members of the group had faced persecution in certain countries because of the sect’s interpretation of Islam, in which it allows the consumption of alcohol and for women to eschew the hijab.