A B.C. provincial court has dished out $44,000 in fines to Vancouver-based Freshslice Pizza and franchise owner Bahman Afshari for employing a handful of foreign workers illegally.

The Canadian Border Services Agency launched an investigation into the company after receiving a tip about shady hiring practices two years ago.

CBSA spokeswoman Stefanie Wudel said agents entered downtown Vancouver Freshslice locations at Pender and Dunsmuir streets and caught two foreign nationals working without permits.

Further investigation turned up five more illegally employed workers, but Wudel could not say where they were working.

The CBSA also declined to say what countries the workers came from.

JM Food Services Ltd. and Fine Edge Enterprise Ltd., operating as Freshslice Pizza, pleaded guilty to four counts of employing a foreign national without authorization and were ordered to pay $8,000 per worker.

Afshari, who runs the Pender and Dunsmuir pizza shops, pled guilty to three counts and was fined $4,000 per worker. Afshari also received one year of probation and was ordered to serve 25 hours of community service.

Wudel said for their part, the workers may be told to cheese it.

"A person found working without authorization becomes inadmissible to Canada, and subject to removal on an exclusion order," Wudel said.

An exclusion order forbids a person from returning to Canada for one year.