Maria is in her early thirties when she decides: This is her last chance to turn everything around. At the urging of an acquaintance, she left Colombia, where she studied accounting and worked part-time as a nanny. She moves to Poland – to start over again. And above all, the friend promises to earn three times as much as he would at home from day one.
He himself has worked in Polish meat factories and recommends a temporary employment agency and a company that would hire her. What Maria doesn't suspect: There are educational institutions in Poland that on paper train hundreds of foreigners, but in reality they serve a sophisticated scam. Behind this are temporary employment agencies that cheat social security and the tax office out of large sums of money.
Maria actually has a different name; her name was changed by the editors at their own request. She enters Poland legally. The Polish employer takes care of the paperwork and permits; all she has to do is send the necessary information via WhatsApp. The acquaintance, who has lived in Poland for several years, acts as an intermediary.
The conditions actually correspond to the company's information: eight-hour shift on the meat line, paid overtime possible, free accommodation. It's not ideal - three or four people in one room, a dozen strangers throughout the house - but it's okay for starters.
"I then moved to another city, there was supposed to be a lot of work there. I waited two weeks - nothing. So I started looking for another company. An acquaintance recommended the Dreamteam PL temporary employment agency to me, he had worked there himself," says Maria.
The work is the same, just in a different meat processing plant. The wage is similar – 3500 zloty net (around 810 euros). The only difference: Dreamteam deducts 600 zloty for the apartment. It quickly becomes apparent that it's not just about accommodation.
"A colleague asked us if we wanted to learn Polish. I signed up immediately. Dreamteam offered language courses." The course costs 3,000 zloty, and foreign workers are allowed to pay in installments. Maria insists that she really wanted to learn Polish. The company collects the first installment. Lessons: none. Maria asks whether the course will even begin.
“It was only later that I began to put the pieces of the puzzle together”
"A few weeks later, Dreamteam called together everyone who had registered. There were 70 or 80 people. There we received certificates in Polish. About two weeks later, another certificate arrived - and a student ID card. When I had the papers translated, it came out: I am a student. I had never applied to a university."
At first, Maria doesn't understand why the representative from the temporary employment agency gives everyone a piece of paper with the name of the university, the type of course and the subject. "We should learn this by heart. And if the police or other authorities inspect the business, we should be able to recite the information from the pieces of paper. Only later did I start to put the pieces of the puzzle together and suspect that something might be wrong with the legality of these certificates and the use of student status."
Student status can be awarded twice: for the foreign worker in Poland as well as for the company or agency that employs him. Firstly, as a student you are allowed to work in Poland without going through the lengthy and costly work permit process.
Secondly, employers are exempt from contributions to social security and health insurance for students under the age of 26 who work on the basis of a so-called contract - a free form of contract common in Polish labor law without a fixed obligation to pay social security contributions. It is precisely in this form of contract that Polish companies often employ foreign workers.
In Maria's case, both aspects hardly play a role. She is already 26 years old and has an independent work permit for Poland. But for others who came to that agency meeting and received the pieces of paper with the names of universities, they may well be relevant.
Maria's certificates are suspicious at first glance. According to the data, she first started studying and then graduated from high school. However, it is also impossible that she passed: Maria still doesn't speak Polish to this day.
The first letter has a file number, the university's logo and the stamp of the representative for technical and continuing education, Dr. Dariusz M. The address provided, Ulica Czluchowska 68A in Warsaw, is a multi-story office building. But no one here has ever heard of a “college for computer science and health”. Dariusz M. cannot be reached by telephone either.
The second certificate identifies Maria as a student at the Parva School, an evening high school for adults in Sieradz, 200 kilometers southwest of Warsaw. The document bears the school stamp and the director's signature: Dariusz M.
Maria's school does not exist
A Parva school actually existed in Sieradz, and in September 2025 the name was changed to Socrates. Socrates' website still boasts photos of smiling students. But no one answers any of the three phone numbers provided. An on-site visit shows that the Socrates School is housed in a representative office building in the center of Sieradz.
The Socrates students will attend classes and vocational courses on the third and top floor. Should - because the hallway is empty, all the classrooms are locked. Likewise the secretariat. Employees of the office building claim that they have never seen any students here.
At the end of May, the Sieradz district public prosecutor's office reported the arrest of six members of a criminal organization. The accusation: She had “fraudulently confirmed the student status of foreign and Polish citizens.” They are said to have issued around 2,500 fake enrollment certificates and ran a printing company for fake student ID cards.
Three of the six accused are in custody. The damage to the Polish social insurance agency ZUS is estimated at almost four million zloty (around 920,000 euros), the damage to the tax office at almost 1.4 million zloty (around 320,000 euros).
The investigators do not specify which school was specifically affected. When asked, the public prosecutor's office did not want to confirm whether Dariusz M. was among those arrested. However, as Onet learned from three independent sources, the public prosecutor's investigation does indeed relate to the Parva/Socrates school - and director Dariusz M. is among those arrested.
Some officials in the Sieradz district office admit that the operation of Dariusz M.'s school has been a headache for them for a long time. "Officially they had 600 to 700 students on their books. Maybe ten of them were from the area, the rest were foreigners. From all over the world," says one. “I understand that some teaching may have taken place online,” another staff member added. "But with so many students, someone was bound to show up from time to time. And we never saw anyone."
For years, the state transferred money to the supposed school
Nevertheless, money constantly flowed from the Sieradz district office's coffers to Parva/Socrates. In 2024 the school received 304,000 zloty in public subsidies, and the following year 413,000 zloty. But they had no real means of supervision, complains one official: “If everything is correct on paper, we have to transfer the money.”
Maria's case was handed over to the prosecutor's office in December 2025. She herself reported that it was very likely that she had been involved in a crime, even if she didn't know it at the time. The proceedings were discontinued on May 28th. Reason: There is no crime.
But the consequences are still felt today. Rocío Flores, who comes from Mexico herself, is involved in the Commission of Latin American Workers in Poland, part of the Workers' Initiative union. About every two weeks, she says, those affected by university fraud contact their union. On the one hand, migrants fear their temporary employment agencies. On the other hand, deportation.
"In most cases, the workers don't even know that they are involved in something illegal. They trust the agency. Then when an inspection comes, it turns out that their documents are illegal. And these people are deported," said Flores. "We migrants are the ones who bear the brunt. It's about justice."
