🔗 Share this article

Lilian, a 35-year-old Kenyan living in the Gulf state, was scrolling on TikTok in the spring when she came across posts from a hiring company promising jobs in foreign countries. The Nairobi-based WorldPath House of Travel, claiming more than 20,000 followers on the social media app, guaranteed hassle-free work visas for employment across Europe.

“They were displaying work permits they’d secured, documents, like: ‘We have Europe visas in hand,’” Lilian remembers.

After transferring a fee of 150,000 Kenyan shillings – one year’s savings – Lilian obtained a document with the logo of a based in the Netherlands recruitment agency, Undutchables, proposing her the role of “fruits and vegetable sorter” in Amsterdam.

However, WorldPath House of Travel lacks registration with the country’s official labor regulator. Furthermore, its claimed partnership with Undutchables is not real, stated the agency’s general manager, who described WorldPath’s recruitment effort a “deception”.

“When you’re desperate, you are more likely to believe things readily,” says one unemployed Kenyan who has not yet told their family they lost more than 350,000 Kenyan shillings to an agency promoting on TikTok.

As the months dragged on, Lilian discovered she had been defrauded. The agency failed to answer her multiple requests for a refund and claimed its phone number was out of service, based on messages.

This agency is not the only unaccredited recruiter on TikTok. Findings identified over ten agencies that are not approved with the authorities, as is a legal requirement, but which are leveraging the platform to promote logistics, manufacturing, hotel and protection work around the world. A number of accounts linked to alleged scams have since been removed and seemingly reopened under new usernames.

Stolen Savings and Elaborate Deceptions

Six Kenyans who lost money to such agencies have recounted their stories. They paid between 100,000 and 545,000 Kenyan shillings to recruiters, offering their cattle, taking out bank loans and borrowing from family and friends to cover commission fees for jobs that never materialised.

The recruiters on TikTok employed elaborate tactics to convince job seekers of their legitimacy, in one case presenting forged documents from a Toronto hospital and Canadian immigration authorities, and organizing fake interviews with purported employers in others.

“The premises was good, in a respectable neighborhood, nice location, well arranged, multiple employees – I got the feeling that this is something that is legitimate,” said the jobseeker.

Financial Hardship Fuels the Scams

Kenya’s economy is stagnant, with figures putting youth unemployment at nearly 17% and a severe cost of living crisis that sparked mass protests last year. The government is facilitating labour export to address unemployment and strengthen its economy through money sent home. It has plans to place one million of its nationals each year in jobs abroad.

In the interim, many Kenyans are directing their job search to TikTok. Approximately 62% of the population now uses the platform, a jump from 54% two years ago.

Crackdowns and Ongoing Problems

At least one prominent TikToker has been hit with criminal charges. Earlier this year, a popular figure was arraigned accused of taking payments from dozens of Kenyans for non-existent foreign jobs. She pleaded not guilty to the charges. Reports indicated she vacated her offices in Kenya.

In May, the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection issued a list of more than 30 banned agencies and said it was probing more than 150 more amid allegations of illegal recruitment practices.

However, agencies that are not on the public list of registered recruiters have kept multiplying on TikTok.

Further Cases

Halisi Affiliates, which business records show was founded in late 2023, used the platform to advertise jobs across Europe and North America as an unlicensed recruiter.

Nimo*, 27, says she paid Halisi 150,000 Kenyan shillings to secure her sister a restaurant job in Romania. But the sisters grew wary during group Zoom calls with the agency and more than 50 other Kenyans who received the same offer. Some had been waiting for months with no update.

The sisters demanded their money back, but discovered Halisi had ceased operations at its office and removed social media.

Another jobseeker, Sylvia Wairimu Maina, 31, says she paid Halisi a deposit of 100,000 Kenyan shillings for an assistant nursing role in the Netherlands, supposedly organized through Halisi’s partner firm, Global Employment Consultant.

Halisi and Global Employment Consultant pointed fingers at each other for lengthy delays, Maina says, and she never received a refund. Because she quit her previous job for the promised move, the experience left her with “financially ruined”.

“It was devastating,” says Maina. “And very taxing.”

Global Employment Consultant is not registered under UK business records, and no registrations matching its activities or address could be found.

Rebranding

In late 2024, as clients began questioning the delays, four of Halisi’s five founding officers formed a new company called Fly With Halisi, records show.

By this year, a Fly With Halisi account on TikTok appeared, using a slightly altered version of the old Halisi logo. A corresponding Facebook account surfaced a month later.

In a statement, Halisi said it was “a victim of fraud by an overseas third-party partner” and that it left TikTok “to allow for internal review and cooperation with officials”, including filing a police report, refunding several clients and facilitating jobs for two people. It said its office closure was “not an attempt to evade clients”.

The company denied any connection to the new TikTok account but did not answer additional questions about the new business with the same name.

Certain identities are protected. Other interviewees have been identified by their first names only for security.