A Llanelli takeaway has lost the licence that let it trade into the early hours, after a council hearing was told immigration officers found illegal workers there twice in five months.
A Carmarthenshire Council licensing sub-committee revoked the premises licence for the All In One takeaway on Murray Street — which had allowed opening until 3.30am on Fridays and Saturdays, and late hours every night of the week.
The takeaway can now no longer open after 11pm. The revocation can be appealed.
Haci Ali Turkmen, who owned the business at the time of the visits, was handed an £80,000 civil penalty, which the sub-committee heard remains unpaid. His company, St Kebab & Pizza Ltd, went into liquidation the month after the fine was issued.
Mr Turkmen has since sold the business — but the premises licence was never transferred to the new owner, the council’s legal officer Robert Edgecombe told the meeting.
Two visits, three workers
A Home Office case summary before the committee said the first visit, in February 2025, found a man handling potatoes with flour-covered hands who told officers he was preparing food for himself and not working — but CCTV showed him cooking and serving customers. Checks showed he had entered the UK illegally the previous July and had no right to work.
When officers returned in July 2025, the summary said, a man behind the counter walked to the rear of the premises and sat on a freezer, telling officers it was his first day — before saying he had been helping for a few weeks. A second man initially claimed he was there to charge his phone.
Home Office checks showed both had entered the UK illegally, in 2023, and neither had the right to work — one was in breach of work restrictions while appealing a refused protection claim.
Mr Turkmen told officers the two had worked there for months, paid in cash along with food and cigarettes, and said he had assumed they were allowed to work based on the wording of their biometric residence cards.
“How am I going to know?”
Mr Turkmen, who told the meeting his English was not good, maintained the cards said work was allowed. “How am I going to know?” he asked councillors, appealing for the licence to stay in place for the takeaway’s new owner.
The case summary said it was concerning that no preventative measures — such as right-to-work checks — were put in place after the first visit, noting Mr Turkmen was present during both.
Alex Romano, of the Home Office’s immigration enforcement department, told the meeting Mr Turkmen had made assumptions about the cards and that proper right-to-work checks were not undertaken.
She said the ability to work illegally was a key driver of illegal migration: “It exposes individuals to exploitation and fuels dangerous journeys facilitated by people smugglers and unfairly disadvantages legitimate businesses that comply with the law.”
Enforcement across the county
The hearing comes amid stepped-up enforcement in the area. Last month, six people were arrested at Florentino’s restaurants in Carmarthen and Tenby, and a Gower construction site was among hundreds of businesses visited in what the Home Office called its largest crackdown on illegal working last autumn.
It is not only immigration enforcement putting pressure on non-compliant businesses in the county — Carmarthenshire’s Trading Standards team has been shutting illegal vape sellers at record pace.
