The Home Office is investigating a company linked to the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (AROPL), a sect based in Cheshire, over its use of immigration visas. The probe centres on 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 12 skilled worker visas issued between 2022 and 2025. Skilled worker visas, introduced in 2020, allow companies to hire foreign workers with specialist skills. In September 2025, the Home Office announced a crackdown on sponsors 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 and that it was unaware of any investigation. The sect, which blends tenets of Islam with conspiracy theories, has about 100 followers living in a former orphanage in Crewe.
The group moved to the UK in 2021 after transferring its headquarters from Sweden, where immigration authorities investigated several companies linked to the sect and issued 69 deportation orders. AROPL said it had already left Sweden when the orders were handed down.
AROPL's lawyers said any suggestion that visas were used improperly to bring followers to the UK was false, and that the group had paperwork to prove it. They described AROPL as a peaceful, open movement derived from Shia Islam, recognised by multiple international bodies.
