Go read this report on a fake company that tricked real people into working for it by leo_sands, catrinnye, DivyaTalwar1, and mrbenlister for BBCNews
The Zoom call had about 40 people on it - or that's what the people who had logged on thought. The all-staff meeting at the glamorous design agency had been called to welcome the growing company's newest recruits. Its name was Madbird and its dynamic and inspirational boss, Ali Ayad, wanted everyone on the call to be ambitious hustlers - just like him.
Madbird hired more than 50 others. Most worked in sales, some in design and some were brought in to supervise. Every new joiner was instructed to work from home - messaging over email and speaking to each other on Zoom. To one person he introduced himself as a Mormon, from Utah in the US. To others, he was from Lebanon, where a difficult childhood had taught him how to be a hustler. Even his name changed. Sometimes he added a second "y" to his surname, spelling it "Ayyad". Other times he signed off as "Alex Ayd".
Ali Ayad "floored me with how meaningful and thoughtful his approach was", read one comment - supposedly from a creative director at Nike. "Agencies can be filled with copycats but that's not Ali. He brings originality and authenticity to any project he works on." For months, Madbird's daily business hummed along, more designers were hired to meet the backlog of briefs being negotiated by the sales team.
Some recruits ended up leaving after a few weeks, but many stayed. Many had been there for almost six months - forced to take out credit cards and borrow money from family to keep on top of bills. Gemma contacted an estate agent with a listing at the same address who confirmed her suspicion - the building was purely residential. We later corroborated this by speaking to someone who'd worked in the building for years. They had never seen Ali Ayad. The block of flats was not the global headquarters of a design firm called Madbird.
It was at this moment that we began our own investigation into Madbird. We corroborated the claims in the Jane Smith email, and went even further.The company had not been "shipping products and experiences locally and globally for 10 years" as it had claimed. In fact, Ali Ayad only registered Madbird with Companies House on the same day he interviewed Chris Doocey to be a sales manager - 23 September 2020.
Others were even wackier. A graphic designer, brand growth manager, and marketing manager at Madbird actually turned out to be pictures of a Lebanese doctor, a Spanish actor, and an Italian fashion influencer. All of their photos had been stolen to create fake identities. Ali's own backstory crumbled, too. He had never worked for Nike as a "creative lead" in the US, like he claimed. Nike confirmed to us in writing it hadn't employed anyone with his name - or any of his aliases.
The morning after the allegations landed from Gemma and Antonia in their Jane Smith email, Ali Ayad sent his own email to the Madbird team. "If any of this information came to be true," he wrote, it is as "shocking to me as it's shocking to all of you." Stephie Nkoy-Nyama, from east London, had quit a good job to join Madbird. Her last company had kept her on during the pandemic even while letting others go. She felt pressured by Ali into quitting that job to join his company. "He played us like fools."And then, there were the international staff. Elvis John, originally from Chennai in India, had at one point been expecting to be on a flight to the UK.
Three former workers pursued Madbird through an employment tribunal, arguing they should at least be paid minimum wage for their time there. Ali didn't respond to the tribunal in time, and so a judge ordered the trio be paid £19,000 in wages in total. Ali appealed against the decision, which the tribunal upheld. He is now appealing again.
There was always the possibility that some anonymous mastermind was behind everything, and it is something we seriously considered. But without any names or help from Ali, it was a path we were unable to pursue.
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