Lilian, a 35-year-old Kenyan living in Qatar, was scrolling on TikTok in April when she saw posts from a recruitment agency offering jobs overseas. The Kenya-based WorldPath House of Travel, with more than 20,000 followers on the social media platform, promised hassle-free work visas for jobs across Europe.

“They were showing work permits they’d received, envelopes, like: ‘We have Europe visas already,’” Lilian recalls.

After transferring a deposit of 150,000 Kenyan shillings (£870) – one year’s savings – Lilian received a document with the letterhead of a Netherlands-based recruitment agency, Undutchables, offering her the role of “fruits and vegetable sorter” in Amsterdam.

But WorldPath House of Travel is not registered with Kenya’s National Employment Authority. And its supposed partnership with Undutchables is nonexistent, the agency’s general manager, Nick van der Dussen, confirmed, calling WorldPath’s recruitment effort a “scam”.

As the months dragged on, Lilian realised she had been duped. WorldPath ignored her repeated requests for a refund and claimed its phone number was out of service, according to messages seen by the Guardian.

WorldPath is far from the only unregistered recruiter on TikTok. The Guardian identified more than a dozen agencies that are not accredited with the Kenyan government, as they are legally required to be, but which are using the platform to promote warehouse, factory, hospitality and security work around the world. Several accounts linked to alleged scams have since been deleted and apparently restarted under new usernames.

Six Kenyans who lost money to such agencies have shared their stories with the Guardian. They paid between 100,000 and 545,000 Kenyan shillings to recruiters, selling their cattle, taking out bank loans and borrowing from family and friends to cover commission fees for jobs that never materialised.

The recruiters on TikTok went to great lengths to convince job seekers of their legitimacy, in one case proffering falsified documents from a Toronto hospital and Canadian immigration authorities, and setting up fake interviews with purported employers in others.

“When you’re desperate, you tend to fall for things easily,” says one jobless Kenyan who has not yet told their family they lost more than 350,000 Kenyan shillings to an agency advertising on TikTok. “The office was good, in a good building, nice location, well arranged, several staff – I got the idea that this is something that is good.”

Kenya’s economy is stagnant, with the World Bank estimating youth unemployment of nearly 17% and a cost of living crisis that fuelled mass protests last year. The Kenyan government is facilitating labour export to address unemployment and strengthen its economy through remittances. It plans to place one million of its nationals annually in jobs abroad.

In the meantime, many Kenyans are taking their job search to TikTok. About 62% of the population now uses the platform, according to the Reuters Institute, up from 54% two years ago.

At least one TikToker has faced criminal charges. In March, Maria Kamunge, popularly known as Rish Kamunge, appeared in court accused of soliciting money from dozens of Kenyans for bogus foreign jobs. She denied the charges. Local media reported that she closed her offices in Kenya. In May, Kenya’s Ministry of Labour and Social Protection released a list of more than 30 blacklisted agencies and said it was investigating more than 150 more amid accusations of illegal recruitment practices.

But agencies that are not on Kenya’s public list of registered recruiters have continued to proliferate on TikTok.

Halisi Affiliates, which Kenyan business records show was founded in December 2023, used the platform to advertise jobs across Europe and North America as an unregistered recruiter.

Nimo*, 27, says she paid Halisi 150,000 Kenyan shillings in October 2024 to secure her sister a restaurant job in Romania. But the sisters grew suspicious during Zoom calls with Halisi and more than 50 other Kenyans who received the same offer, according to screenshots of a meeting. Some had been waiting for months with no update.

The sisters demanded their money back, but discovered Halisi had closed down its office and social media.

Another jobseeker, Sylvia Wairimu Maina, 31, says she paid Halisi a deposit of 100,000 Kenyan shillings in September 2024 for an assistant nursing role in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, arranged through Halisi’s British partner, Global Employment Consultant, according to documents and messages shared with the Guardian.

Halisi and Global Employment Consultant blamed one another for months-long delays, Maina says, and she never received a refund. Because she quit her caregiving job for the promised move, the experience left her with “no money, no savings”.

“It was devastating,” says Maina. “And very draining.”

Global Employment Consultant is not registered under UK business records, nor do any registrations containing “GEC” match its activities or address, which its website lists as a residential London building with an incorrect postcode.

In November 2024, as Maina and Nimo’s families began questioning the delays of their placements, four of Halisi’s five founding officers registered a new company called Fly With Halisi, records show.

By September this year, a Fly With Halisi account on TikTok came online, using a tweaked version of the Halisi Affiliates logo. A Facebook account appeared a month later.

In a statement, Halisi told the Guardian it was “a victim of fraud by an overseas third-party partner” in Romania and that it left TikTok “to allow for internal review and cooperation with Kenyan authorities”, including filing a police report, refunding several clients and facilitating jobs for two people. It said its office closure was “not an attempt to evade clients”.

The company denied any connection to the new TikTok account, but did not answer follow-up questions about its offices’ new business with the same name, or Maina’s case.

TikTok did not respond to multiple requests for comment, including a list of the accounts tracked by the Guardian. Neither WorldPath nor Global Employment Consultant responded to questions.

Some names have been changed. Other interviewees have been identified by their first names only for safety