Crooks register 500 names at one flat to con £1m in benefits

[clansman]

AN ex council flat is said to house 500 PEOPLE in a benefit fraud which has cost taxpayers at least £1million.
Nigerian crooks have used the three-bedroom home to steal family tax credits and child benefits using the names of unsuspecting real people.

Corrupt insiders at the Department for Work and Pensions supplied the IDs of genuine claimants whose benefits ended after they got jobs.

The gang then made new claims from 25 Brookstone Court in Peckham, South East London. Direct debit benefit payments were routed to Nigeria.

The con exploited the weakness of Government computer systems which failed to spot the same address.

A source said: "We believe it went on for several years and easily involves over £1million, or higher."

The co-owner of the flat - bought for £67,000 from Southwark Council in 2004 - was arrested last week.

Akinmayone Aiyeloa was quizzed over allegations of conspiracy to defraud over £20,000.

Two DWP employees have also been arrested and dismissed. Further arrests are expected.

Officials believe similar scams are being run nationwide. Benefit fraud costs the country £5.2billion a year.

A source said: "This is just one element of a huge swindle.

"A weakness has been detected and exploited by foreign gangs.


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"We are talking about many millions being stolen when a simple computer programme could have stopped it."

When The Sun called at 25 Brookstone Court there was no answer.

A neighbour said: "About four people live there, but not a family."

Last night, former Scotland Yard commander John O'Connor called the scam "utterly outrageous".

He said: "Simple checks by auditors should have stopped this."



I'm fvkin speechless!

[Guest]

[nelix]

When I read this today in the paper my first reaction was>>>> Then it went to>>>> How in hell could this happen when we live in such a technologicaly advanced age? Everything is computerised.! We cant do owt these days without the comps say so..Its madness! well I hope these crooks are severly dealt with..and if they arent actuall citizens of our fair land..Get em out! I'm sure they have money salted away in Nigeria so let em go and spend it..we have enough home grown scroungers without imported ones..

[Guest]

The Nigerian who stole 350 IDs to claim £1.3m benefits
By Rebecca Camber
Last updated at 12:53 PM on 24th February 2011

Comments (340) Add to My Stories
Scam: Olaide Taiwo, seen here at his London home, stole the identities of 350 people to claim £1.3m in bogus tax credits
A Nigerian immigrant stole the identities of 350 people to claim £1.3million in bogus tax credits in the largest benefit scam of its kind.
Olaide Taiwo, 35, hijacked the identities while working as a security guard for a number of large national companies.
He then used the names to claim tens of thousands in working tax credits.
This week he was jailed for eight and a half years – the highest ever sentence for tax credit fraud.
Taiwo is understood to have arrived illegally in Britain in 2003 with his wife. Although three applications to stay in the UK failed, in 2005 he was granted discretionary leave to remain.
It was during this period that his scam began. The father-of-two submitted more than 300 fraudulent tax credit claims between June 2004 and July 2008 worth over £1million.
When he was arrested, investigators found an ‘identity thieves’ paradise’, with stacks of fake passports and driving licences and £70,000 in cash lying around his council flat in Camberwell, South-East London.
The property was littered with paperwork detailing the names, addresses and national insurance numbers of hundreds of people which he had taken from employee payroll records at dozens of companies around London where he had worked as a security guard.
They also found templates for making false passports, birth certificates, NHS cards and driving licences.
Taiwo used the identities to open hundreds of bank accounts for the benefits to be paid into, but HM Revenue & Customs became suspicious about the multiple tax credit applications and arrested him in July 2008.
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They believe he was the ringleader of an organised criminal network which included his sister-in-law who worked for a job centre.
But the rest of the gang are thought to have fled to Nigeria. Taiwo also tried to leave the country but he was arrested again on August 6 last year.
He was found guilty at Inner London Crown Court of fraudulently obtaining payments of tax credits, by using the names and addresses of individuals without their consent and acquiring criminal property.
Sentencing him, Judge Simon Davis ordered that he be deported at the end of his eight and a half year sentence.
He said: ‘This is a fraud on a substantial scale.
‘You lied and sought to manipulate with ease and confidence and with an arrogance that was astonishing.
‘You were intimately connected with every aspect of the fraud, stealing real details of real people to commit identity fraud on the large scale.’
Another member of the gang, Taiwo’s sister-in-law Olajumoke Ademuyiwa, 42, a Jobcentre Plus employee, was also found guilty of fraudulently obtaining tax credit payments in an earlier hearing.
Ademuyiwa opened the bank accounts into which the benefits were paid, but she is not thought to have used her role as a job centre worker to make false claims.

Her husband, Oluyemi Amidu Taiwo – Taiwo’s brother – is thought to have fled the country. She is due to be sentenced in April.
Richard Young, senior investigating officer for HMRC said: ‘This pair blatantly hijacked the identities of over 350 innocent people and stole from British taxpayers by submitting over 300 fraudulent tax credit claims between June 2004 and July 2008.
‘They deliberately attacked and abused a system designed to provide financial help to the most vulnerable people in our society.’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1360037/Nigerian-Olaide-Taiwo-stole-350-IDs-claim-1-3m-benefits.html#ixzz1F0bnz4EC reminded me of this one

[nelix]

So they were ILLEGAL immigrants? Friggin marvelous!

[Guest]

yep nelix

you should put them on the first flight home

[Guest]

Bloody marvelous init?? i think this is just the top of a deep scab too.

shove the lot of them on and old boat (it might brake down!)
and float them out to sea...and sod them!...anyway whats with nigeria
all coming here...i thought we invited west indians ONLY??

watching border control...they just got a pile of p.a.k.i. s. 2 wives each.
that did a similar thing...money all in pakistan...but i was glad to hear
that they can get their hands on it...the prog; ended with these two
detectives going over there....