in a luxurious mansion worth more than £1m while his benefit cheat wife drove a
Merc and wore a Rolex has been ordered to pay back £1.2m.
Ovo Mayomi, 44,
claimed he was earning £700 a month and living in Croydon, south London.
His wife Juliet
Ubiribo, 32, told benefit bosses she was a single mum so she could claim
housing and council tax benefit.
She also asked the
council to rehouse her because she was a victim of domestic violence – but the
phone number she gave revealed her landlord, Ayiomike Neburagho, was really her
husband Mayomi using a false identity.
Fraud investigators
discovered he owned a large luxurious house in Nigeria worth more than £1m and
boasting chandeliers and £89,000 worth of sound equipment.
He also wore a
£25,000 watch and his wife drove a Mercedes Sport Coupe.
A judge has now
ordered Mayomi to pay £1,197,743 in a confiscation order – or face six years in
prison.
The Proceeds Of
Crime Act allows the court to seize assets even if it doesn’t have enough
evidence of criminal activity to secure a conviction.
As well as two
money-transferring businesses and bank accounts, investigators also discovered
Mayomi owned a fish farm in the country.
signed freezing their assets in the UK and abroad in 2010, and an investigation
was launched to find out how much the Nigerian-born couple had gained from
their criminal lifestyle.
Judge Nicholas
Ainley made the confiscation order at Croydon Crown Court after Mayomi disputed
the investigators’ findings.He must cough up by March 14 next year.
In July Ubiribo was
ordered to pay back £9,357 or face five months in prison.
Ubiribo was charged
with 10 theft offences, four fraud act offences and two immigration offences.
Mayomi was charged
with nine counts of theft, one count of fraud, four immigration offences, and
one count of perjury for entering into a false marriage using a false identity.
They pleaded guilty
to all charges and Mayomi was jailed for 30 months, while Ubiribo was sentenced
to 12 months in prison suspended for two years.
This prosecution was
the result of a joint investigation by Croydon Council’s corporate anti-fraud
team and the United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA).
Councillor Dudley
Mead, deputy leader of the council, said: “This is a landmark case for Croydon
as it is the first time the council’s in-house financial investigator has
pursued a major confiscation order of this nature.
“As a result of our
investigator’s fine work, the council expects to be able to claw back as much
as £400,000 in taxpayers’ money.
“This case should
serve as a clear warning that crime does not pay.”
The case comes
after a nursing assistant who pocketed more than £400,000 in benefits and
illegal earnings after her application for asylum was turned down THREE times
was jailed yesterday.
Fanta Sesay, 41,
raked in housing and council tax benefits while working at Homerton University
Hospital in east London and St Thomas’ Hospital in south London.
Inner London Crown
Court heard Sesay originally came to the country from Sierra Leone as an asylum
seeker.
After her third
asylum application was rejected she married a British citizen in 2005 and was
granted indefinite leave to remain.
Sesay, who claimed
she spent most of the cash on providing for her two children in Sierra Leone,
was jailed for 28 months.
THE SUN UK
