Olympic site gangmaster's £300,000 pay 'scam'

Transport for London is investigating claims that a gang master conned labourers working on a major Olympic transport link out of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Building contractor Paul Singh allegedly paid staff working on the Tube's East London line extension as little as a third of the amount of money he was actually charging for them.

Between April 2008 and March this year he pocketed £300,000 through exploitation, while his team of 15 earned about minimum wage.

He was contracted to provide the staff by Woulfe and Son, a firm sub-contracted by Balfour Beatty/Carillion, the consortium which won the £363 million contract to build the first phase of the project.

"Mr Singh was allegedly getting £155 per man per day while paying them around the minimum wage [£5.73 per hour] which allowed him to make around £6,000 per week for himself," said a TfL spokesman.

"TfL seeks the highest standards of employment practice from all our contractors.

"We have instructed Balfour Beatty/Carillion to carry out a thorough investigation."