The Story of How 80_Pan Were Denied Entry To Britain

[Mulboyne]

[Catoneinutica]

Fascinating stuff!

"They got the impression that the officer thought the two older men might be coercing them and indicated she could help if they were victims of human trafficking."

[Greji]

. They were told to say they were arriving for sightseeing and everything probably would have been all right until Ogasawara glanced behind at the rest of the group when she was at the immigration counter. The woman officer noticed this and asked if they were together and when she replied "Yes", they were also brought up - the director had already passed through so they were four. Since the men spoke better English, the girls left it up to them to handle questions but things quickly went wrong.

The typical word of mouth advice, "Aw, you don't need no visa, just say blah, blah, blah".

Then if, and when, these people get popped, it is all immigrations fault and to top that off, they treated them like criminals. Just imagine! Their arrangers on that tour group were the first ones they should have went after, when it was all said and done. Immigrations and Customs are just looking for illegals and crooks and so if you try to scam them and miss, you're going to be treated like a crook until you prove you aren't.

[Neo-Rio]

Similar incident happened to me once.

I was on a business trip in the US with Japanese businesspeople.
Our fearless (and idiotic) group leader went through customs first where they drill you on why you are in the country. When it came my turn to go through, I told him that we were in the US on business. Then he asked me if I was travelling with the Japanese people - to which I said I was.

Then shit hit the fan. Apparently the idiot group leader had lied on the reason for entering the US (for sightseeing) despite the fact that we were all dressed somewhat businesslike. So there I was, trying to appease a rather ticked off customs officer to ignore the Japanese guy because he was telling a lot of crap. He accepted my excuse and I apologized profusely just to get myself through customs.

When I confronted the group leader on why he decided to lie - he mentioned something about getting through customs easily without having to be interrogated. He just forgot to pass on this information to me.

[Greji]

Similar incident happened to me once.

I was on a business trip in the US with Japanese businesspeople.
Our fearless (and idiotic) group leader went through customs first where they drill you on why you are in the country. When it came my turn to go through, I told him that we were in the US on business. Then he asked me if I was travelling with the Japanese people - to which I said I was.

Then shit hit the fan. Apparently the idiot group leader had lied on the reason for entering the US (for sightseeing) despite the fact that we were all dressed somewhat businesslike. So there I was, trying to appease a rather ticked off customs officer to ignore the Japanese guy because he was telling a lot of crap. He accepted my excuse and I apologized profusely just to get myself through customs.

When I confronted the group leader on why he decided to lie - he mentioned something about getting through customs easily without having to be interrogated. He just forgot to pass on this information to me.

The fact that he asked you would apparently indicate that he was suspect of your fearless leader up front. I don't know why the J-guys like to do that. It must be the mistaken belief that tourists are never questioned, when actually it is the tourists that are usually more suspect.

[Mulboyne]

I'm not convinced that they definitely didn't need some kind of working visa. The ticket price for the event was only six pounds so it was hardly a major pay day - they would have spent more travelling over than they would have got from door takings. However, those CDs were definitely for sale. I went to some of the London Calling events and all the bands had some kind of merchandise desk. Ogasawara's piece mentions that the event was "no-gyara" - no guarantee - which is not quite the same as unpaid even though that's the way I translated it. It means no-one is inviting them over with the promise of a guarantee but that might be more important for tax rather than immigration. I may be wrong but I think a sportsman or entertainer arriving for a guaranteed payday is liable to pay 17.5% VAT on their earnings.

There's no doubt that their agency would have claimed all costs associated with the trip as business expenses on their domestic tax returns. I suspect the way they pitched it to the consulate and embassy in Tokyo is that the performance was linked to an industry trade show and so it was a business trip, not a normal commercial performance which certainly wouldn't have required a visa. As it is, all the live events linked to London Calling were just ordinary commercial performances open to the public so it isn't a grey area at all. On top of that, the agency claims to have sent a number of bands through without working visas and I'm certain that they weren't all playing at trade shows so they were in the habit of not applying for working visas.

I'm not going to condemn them for that because a lot of performers try it on all over the world. American band Lightning Bolt were busted for the same in Japan in 2006. However, it's not that difficult to apply for working visas for Britain. Immigration has certainly become tougher but the London Calling event would have passed muster so it was only penny-pinching that led them to bend the rules.