YORUBA crime wave sweeps through Britain
Jason Bennetto



The intelligence agencies MI6 and MI5 are being used to clamp down on fraud and drug-dealing by West African gangs. Jason Bennetto, Crime Correspondent, investigates a trend costing Britain billions of pounds a year.

The criminals, mainly Nigerians, have been discovered working inside government departments, the police and tax offices. The level of crime is so serious that the National Criminal Intelligence Service will tomorrow announce an expansion of its work against the gangs.

Agents and eavesdropping equipment from MI5, MI6 and the listening base at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham are being used to investigate Nigerian crime. The cost of the fraud alone is pounds 3.5bn a year, says the NCIS.

The fraudsters concentrate on con-tricks and benefit fraud, drug-trafficking, mainly cocaine, and illegal immigration. The intelligence agencies are assisting NCIS and British forces in some of the most serious cases. The secret services can provide expertise in infiltrating the gangs, bugging, covert surveillance and identifying targets.

The gangs, which have strongholds in the US and most European countries, form networks to siphon money and have proved difficult to break into. Activities by West African criminals that have been detected include:

At the Treasury Solicitor's office, the Government's lawyers, a worker was using the fax to work a scam involving advance fees. She was admonished and sacked.

An employee at the Department of Social Security was creating false National Insurance numbers and identifications which were being used to claim benefits such as education grants and child allowance. One individual was found with 100 separate identities.

A worker at one of the Inland Revenue's accounts offices was caught photocopying incoming company tax returns, cheques, and headed notepaper. These were sold to a contact who wrote to the banks and set up standing orders for small amounts to be paid into their accounts every month.

The Metropolitan Police had a problem with cleaners found looking for data and addresses in a West End police station.

An estimated 500,000 "advance-fee fraud" or "419" letters attempting to con people by promising risk-free cash are sent by West Africans, mainly from Lagos, around the world every year. The "419" scam is named after the section of the Nigerian penal code dealing with fraud. Thousands of individuals and companies in Britain are randomly written to and asked if they will help transfer millions of pounds of government money out of Nigeria in return for a cut of the cash.

All they supposedly have to do is provide bank details. But once hooked they are asked for an "advance" or have money removed from their accounts. Millions are stolen this way every year. Needless to say, the government money never existed.

Law enforcers have found it particularly difficult to crack Nigerian crime rings because they have a complicated language which hard to translate and infiltrate. The Nigerian criminals are good networkers and operate in loose-knit organisations. There are big Nigerian crime rings in Poland, Russia and Bangkok.

An NCIS spokesman confirmed that Nigerian fraudsters had been found working "from the Government to the private sector. They are not just trying to get money, they also want letterheads which can be used for further frauds."

A police source said that you can always tell if a law enforcer is dealing with organised Nigerian crime because "they have a broken marriage, a drink problem, and the largest card index in the office." A small number of the criminals also come from Ghana.

The NCIS, backed by law enforcers from the G8 group of countries, are to launch new anti-crime initiatives aimed at organised West African offenders. Detective Superintendent Bryan Drew, head of the NCIS's Strategic and Specialist Intelligence Branch, said: "West African organised crime is now in the big league - we recognise they now pose a significant threat." Commenting on contributions by the secret services, he said: "The UK intelligence agencies provide support and information that we could not get from anywhere else. They each have specialist skills which can be extremely useful in our investigations."

Another intelligence officer said: "It's by far the most insidious crime problem the UK has got.



Picture: (L-R) Babatunde Fafore of County Meath in Ireland, Ayodeji John Kareem of south east London and Vincent Alonge of Wimbledon

According to the Metropolitan Police, Ayodeji John Kareem, Vincent Alonge and Babatunde Fafore pleaded guilty to the attack that collected personal information such as online banking passwords and credit card numbers through online phishing websites. Those credit card details were then used fraudulently.

Enquiries revealed that through the course of their activity, the defendants compromised over 900 bank accounts and 10,000 credit cards, and over £599,000 was successfully stolen, although attempts were made to access up to £1.13 million. Fraud had been attempted on over 1,400 of the compromised credit cards, amounting to actual losses of over £570,000, while the precise amount is yet to be established.

The three men were arrested in August 2010 following a prolonged investigation by the Police e-crime unit (PCeU) and was codenamed Operation Dynamophone. The convictions are believed to be the first prosecutions in the UK involving such detailed evidence of an organised internet phishing operation.

David Levy, reviewing lawyer for the CPS Central Fraud Group, said: “These men profited enormously by taking advantage of the trust that many of us would place in an internet service that appeared genuine, but their enjoyment of their ill-gotten gains was short-lived. The bogus emails and websites that led victims into the scam also led the authorities to the scammers.

“Those who use the internet thinking they can phish with impunity should be warned by this case that you will be found out and you will be prosecuted.”

The three men were charged with conspiracy to defraud, conspiracy to acquire and use criminal property, possession of a false identity document with the requisite intent and possession of articles for use in fraud.

Kareem pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to acquire and use criminal property and was sentenced to three and a half years and five years and five months respectively, both sentences to run concurrently.

Alonge pleaded guilty to possession of a false identity document with the requisite intent and possession of articles for use in fraud and was sentenced to six months and two years respectively with sentences to run consecutively. He pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to acquire and use criminal property, which were left to lie on file.

Fafore also pleaded guilty to possession of a false identity document with the requisite intent and possession of articles for use in fraud, and was sentenced to six months and two years respectively with sentences to run consecutively.

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.

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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.

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.
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'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.'

baby-boy:

The last time I checked it was an Igbo man, an ex-con or criminal they interviewed on CNN