More than 35 people seized by immigration officials in a string of raids on restaurants, takeaways and shops in the north and north-east will be deported to their home countries.
The illegal workers were caught after the UK Border Agency targeted small towns and villages across Scotland during 2013.
Businesses in Stonehaven, Buckie, Fraserburgh, Wick and Grantown were among those raided, along with a cluster of restaurants on the Isle of Mull.
Some of the workers had been settled here for a number of years. In total, 63 arrests were made between March and September last year as part of 11 high-profile operations.
Latest figures from the Home Office agency show 25 workers have already been deported, with another 10 currently in detention at Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre in Lanarkshire. A total of 28 of the people arrested have been released by officials pending further investigation by the agency. It has refused to name the restaurants where the deported workers were employed.
At least two owners of businesses targeted in the raids across the north-east have been fined £10,000 for employing people illegally.
An agency spokesman said: “Illegal working undercuts honest employers, defrauds the public purse and cheats legitimate job hunters out of employment opportunities.” The intelligence-led operations led to the arrests of eight Bangladeshi men in Stonehaven in September at the Tandoori Haven, Zara Brasseris and Nu Spice Indian Carryout on Allardyce Street.
Five Bangladeshi men were removed from Bengal Brasserie in Cluny Square, Buckie, in the same month.
Three workers from Pakistan were lifted from Nickel and Dime in Fraserburgh in May, with 10 people arrested in Wick at two Indian restaurants and one Chinese takeaway.
Immigration lawyer Matthew Cohen, of Matthew Cohen Associates in Aberdeen, said the immigration story was “often complex”.
He said: “There are people that come into the country, form a life, often have children and the visa runs out. It is not easy for some of them to meet the criteria to remain in the UK.”