A council worker today admitted to claiming more than £200,000 in benefits despite having three jobs and a property portfolio worth more than £500,000. Gladys Popoola’s six-year web of deception, which involved using a false identity and claiming to be unmarried and out-of-work, only came to an end today when she admitted to 16 counts relating to fraud.
Popoola, who has a 17-month-old baby, was warned she can expect a custodial sentence when she returns to Southwark Crown Court for sentencing on March 16. The 47-year-old owned three homes in London and property in Kenya. She was receiving rental income from these homes as well as working for three companies. However Popoola fraudulently claimed benefits by failing to declare that she was living with her husband, who was working, instead claiming she was unmarried in applications for income support, housing benefit, council tax benefit and special grant.
She also admitted today to lying in order to get legal aid in civil proceedings against her. Popoola’s jobs included two with housing groups and employment with Hammersmith and Fulham Council, which she obtained using a false national insurance number and the fake name Gladys Gitonga. She confessed today to 13 counts of making false representation for benefit purposes, one of obtaining property by deception, a national insurance number in April 2004, one of fraud by false representation and one of possessing an article, namely a false national insurance number, for use in fraud
Judge Alistair McCreath warned her to expect a custodial sentence, and said: ‘The starting point is four years. ‘This is a benefit fraud involving over £200,000 of public money in which a custodial outcome is inevitable.’ David Jugnarian, prosecuting, said: ‘The value of the fraud in this case is just in excess of £200,000, it involves a variety of benefits and an application for legal aid in civil proceedings.’
On August 2 2004 Popoola made her first fake benefit claim when applying for income support by failing to declare she was living with her husband, John Ndirangu, who was employed. She also neglected to mention that she had a job at Eden Brown using the name Gladys Gitonga and had savings in excess of the limit. She failed to disclose to authorities that she owned properties at Galsworthy Road, Cricklewood and Earlham Grove, Forest Gate, as well as properties in Kenya, and that she was receiving cash from the rent.
Between September 2004 and April 2005 she hid her marriage when applying for tax credit and in October 2004 and in March 2005 she hid all the details of her private life from the authorities when applying for council tax and housing benefit. In September 2007 she hid her wealth when applying for a social fund grant and by this time she had added another property at Narford Road, Clapton, to her portfolio and stopped working at Eden Brown but taken on three new jobs at Irish Centre housing, English Churches Housing Group and with the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.
In October 2007 and January 2008 she failed to disclose all of this information on a claim for job seekers allowance and even tried to get the payment backdated in another claim despite her three jobs. Her lies continued when, in September 2008, after she had stopped working for Irish Centre Housing, she applied for income support and neglected to reveal her details.
In her application for Jobseeker’s Allowance between September and December 2008 she then hid her two jobs at the English Church Housing Group and with the council, she admitted In October 2008 when applying for housing benefit she hid her husband, her savings, her rental income, her three properties in the UK and a number on Kenya and her two jobs where she was working under the surname Gitonga.
In September 2009 she failed to disclose that she was living with her husband, had the properties in Cricklewood, Forest Gate and Clapton, properties in Kenya and a job with Hammersmith and Fulham Council. It is also alleged in applying for a discretionary housing payment in April 2009 and a maternity allowance in August 2010 she failed to declare the extent of her income.
Brazen Popoola even committed fraud by failing to disclose her personal and financial circumstances in a claim for legal aid in civil proceedings, she admitted today. Shiraz Aziz, defending, said: ‘There have been multiple frauds over a significant period but not all were fraudulent from the outset, I will seek to argue.’ Judge McCreath warned: ‘On whatever basis you are sentenced the sentence on you is bound to be imprisonment, I tell you that now.’
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Oh another case of a mentally ill Kenyan woman.She should come to Sweden for a smooth ride of psychiatric help.
Another GEMA thief
UK London is not Nairobi Kenya where they live on cheating and selling their bodies sexually.She is a Kikuyu thieving whore.
Look at these Money-worshippers Kikuyu hores>http://ktnkenya.tv/?id=2000052206
There were 66 Kenyan convicts in UK prisons by the end of last year, the country’s Justice Ministry has said.
According to the Ministry’s official website, 60 of the convicts were men and only six were women.
However, a spokesman for the Ministry of Justice declined a written request to disclose the number of Kenyans who have been convicted in the UK for the last five years.
Mr Ransford Fiti, said that the cost of researching and compiling the information requested exceeded what the government had provided for such a task.
“The appropriate cost limit for central government is set at £600 (about Sh90,0000) which represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3.5 working days in locating, extracting and collating the information being requested, or… determining if the information being requested is held,” Mr Fiti told The Standard in an email.
He said that some of the detailed information is held by the courts on individual case files, which due to their size and complexity were not reported to Justice Statistics Analytical Services.
In total, UK Prisons had 82,112 foreign nationals with Africans contributing 2,537 offenders.
Africa is ranked second with 2,537 offenders behind Europe, which was in the lead with 4,293 convicts.
Nigerians and Somalis emerged the worst offenders from Africa with 571 and 441 convicts respectively.
East African neighbours Tanzania and Uganda had 20 and 54 convicts respectively.
A woman who came from rural Africa to run an “enormously successful” high-class brothel in central London has been stripped of her wealth by a British court. The case shows that crime can pay…until you get caught.
O’Brien – something of an entrepreneur
In any other industry Ann O’Brien would have probably won a businesswoman of the year award.
But unfortunately she chose to earn her living in the sex business.
Her astonishing rise – from a village in Kenya to a Mayfair penthouse in the space of eight years – suggests crime does actually pay.
But on Thursday she got her come-uppance when, after already being convicted of controlling prostitution, she lost £602,000 when a judge at Southwark Crown Court granted a confiscation order.
Ironically it would have been a lot more had it not been for the property market.
Detective Constable Lawrie Day, who investigated her fortune, said: “The brothel which we seized lost £500,000 in value between us seizing it and finally selling it, partly because she had a retrial.”
We hope that our new powers to seize criminals illegally gained assets as well as imprisonment will act as a strong deterrent to anyone else thinking of operating now that we have closed down this significant criminal enterprise
Superintendent David Eyles
Vice queen loses money
The remarkable story starts in Kenya, where a girl called Ann Wamboi was born 32 years ago.
She dropped out of school as a teenager and worked selling vegetables on her mother’s market stall.
After a few years she set up her own second-hand clothes stall.
Headed for Europe
But in 1995 the family saved up money to buy her a one-way plane ticket to Europe.
She ended up in the Republic of Ireland where she met Patrick O’Brien.
They moved to London and got married, which enabled her to stay in the country.
But Ann soon became Nancy – the name she used while working as a prostitute – and she began selling her body in London’s brothels.
She was working at the top end of the market and such was her acumen that by 1997 she had earned enough money to buy a hairdressing salon – Dreamgirl Creations – in Kilburn, north London, for £200,000. She spent a further £150,000 refurbishing the shop.
O’Brien lived in the brothel’s penthouse
But in May 2001 she went further and splashed out a £487,000 cash deposit on a five-bedroomed house in an exclusive part of Mayfair.
She kitted it out as a brothel – complete with whips, chains and other sex toys – and hired dozens of girls to work there round-the-clock.
At any given time about 14 girls were working, each of them charging around £150 per client.
Money was soon rolling in.
Det Con Day said she was making £12,000 a week in profits and was banking £1.5m a year.
But the vice squad soon learned about the brothel by sending undercover officers who replied to “raunchy” advertisements posted in London telephone boxes.
After visiting and convincing themselves the place was being used as a brothel the detectives “made their excuses before leaving”.
With sufficient evidence police raided the address and closed it down.
O’Brien was put on trial and several of the girls working for her gave evidence against her.
Claimed ignorance
She claimed she was running a legitimate escort service and was unaware of the extra services the girls were providing on the premises.
The jury did not believe her and in May she was convicted and later ordered her to do 180 hours of community service.
Det Con Day and his colleagues in the Metropolitan Police’s Clubs & Vice Financial Investigation Unit then set about investigating her assets, which they eventually calculated to be £2,169,710.
The properties were sold off and once mortgages and other costs were deduced they were left with a sum of £602,915.
O’Brien did not contest the confiscation order at this week’s hearing.
DC Day said: “I’m happy that I’ve identified all her known assets. But she could have squirrelled some away, you never know.”
Clients were charged £150 a time
He said of O’Brien: “She was a pleasant woman who ran a salubrious and up-market brothel. There was no coercion and no signed of trafficked women but she had not paid income tax and was benefiting from the proceeds of crime.”
Her case is the latest success for the unit.
In the financial year 2004/05 they seized £2.5m in cash and assets from brothel owners and porn peddlers and they have already taken £1.1m so far in this financial year.
The money, which is confiscated under the Proceeds of Crime Bill, is split four ways with the Home Office, CPS, Courts Service and the police all getting their share.
Vice laws review
The unit’s head, Superintendent David Eyles, said: “We hope that our new powers to seize criminals illegally-gained assets as well as imprisonment will act as a strong deterrent to anyone else thinking of operating now that we have closed down this significant criminal enterprise.”
A Home Office spokeswoman said some may see prostitution as a victimless crime but she added: “We are aware that there are communities which suffer from prostitution and the criminality associated with it.”
She told the BBC News Website: “It’s a complex issue and we are looking to break the links between prostitution, drugs and trafficking.”
The Home Office is carrying out a comprehensive review of prostitution laws, which involved a public consultation, and will be publishing its strategy in the next couple of months.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Ruth Wambui Mungai-Azeez
A Kenyan care home assistant who led a life of luxury by allegedly helping her husband launder the profits of a Sh700 million mortgage fraud is facing a long jail term in Britain.
Ruth Wambui Mungai-Azeez, 26, denied the charges when she appeared before the Southwark Crown Court in Central London.
She was charged with acquisition, use of criminal proceeds and with assisting another person to retain the benefit of crime.
Mrs Azeez is said to have lived in a six-bedroom house with 12 plasma televisions and drove a Bentley and Land Rover.
She took holidays in Dubai and the south of France, kept Sh220 million in her bank accounts and blew huge sums at expensive bars and restaurants. But her life was funded by crime, Southwark crown court heard.
Her Nigerian husband Victor Ayinde-Azeez is alleged to have led a mortgage fraud gang which plundered nearly Sh700 million from high street banks in six weeks.
He ‘bought’ 22 houses around the South-East and, with his accomplices, applied for mortgages from high street lenders.
When Mrs Azeez was arrested, she was about to leave the country after her husband texted her a warning that the police were on their way. He is believed to be abroad.
The Kenyan national was told by Judge Martin Beddoe: “It seems to me that I’m going to have to pass on you a significant sentence, without credit for a guilty plea.”
She was denied bail and remanded at a North London women prison waiting sentencing later this month.
I like the Wa-kikuyu smartness. Whats wrong with thieving former colonial masters.
How much money is Forex and other foreign banks and companies thieving from Kenya?
Thanks we have smart Kikuyus taking some back to Jamhuri untill they are cought.
Comments (264)Here’s what other readers have said. Why not debate this issue live on our message boards.
Press the name >Sourse and about 264 comments from very angry readers and taxpayers who thinks UK govt is in deep sleep when bloody Niggers are comming into UK to cheat! and more comments still comming!
Carer jailed for stealing from dementia patient A carer has been jailed after stealing more than £5,000 from an elderly woman suffering from dementia.
Sarah Kakigotho, also known as Kigotho, was handed a jail sentence of 18 months at Cambridge Crown Court today after having previously admitted three counts of fraud by false representation and three counts of theft.
The court heard the 37-year-old had arrived in the UK ten years ago on a visitors’ visa she has long since overstayed.
Sara Walker, prosecuting, said the victim was Mary Hoy, who will turn 85 this April, and lives in Newmarket Road, Melbourn.
Ms Walker said: “This lady suffers from dementia and suffers mobility difficulties and requires live in care.
“The defendant went to live with Mrs Hoy who was employed through a care home agency based near Saffron Walden.”
In court the agency was named as Care At Home. Judge Anthony Bate said the public “might be understandably concerned” Kakigotho was able to “bypass checks” to get the job.
Ms Walker said Mrs Hoy’s son James noticed her weekly expenditure had risen and suspected his mother’s card had been cloned.
Ms Walker said: “He told his mother of his suspicions. The defendant was in the room at the time. He noticed the defendant became very agitated when he talked about the fact physical evidence would be available.”
Kakigotho told the family she was going to Addenbrooke’s to have her leg attended to and they didn’t see her again.
Ms Walker said there were 28 occasions whereby money had been stolen from Mrs Hoy from mid-May to July last year, including ATM withdrawals, seven cheques and catalogue transactions.
A further 13 offences including four of making false representation and nine of theft, on top of the charges, were taken into consideration when sentencing took place. In total the offences related to £5,016, Ms Walker said.
But she added the victim’s son, identified this figure as £5,796. She said for the purposes of sentencing these figures fell under the same category.
The court heard Kakigotho was “under pressure to return money to her mother”. Edmund Blackman, mitigating, said she comes from “humble origins” in Kenya where she grew up in a small, wooden house with no plumbing or water.
He said she obtained the job as a carer by using someone else’s passport. Mr Blackman said: “She suffers from schizophrenia. She was an inpatient at a psychiatric unit at the time of her arrest.”
He said proceedings to deport her are already underway, and she will “end up destitute and seriously ill on the streets of Nairobi”.
Kakigotho was already serving a prison sentence after previously being sentenced to 12 months in jail at Blackfriars Crown Court in November last year after pleading guilty to possessing false identification documents.
Judge Bate said: “You have used to find work no fewer than eight names including the name you under which you appear in this court.”
He added: “This was a sustained raid on an elderly lady’s account.
“I have no doubt this offending was underpinned by greed.” The 18-month prison sentence will run concurrently to the Blackfriars matter.
John Towers, HR director at Care at Home, said after the hearing: “As a company we deeply regret that despite carrying out the usual pre-employment checks on this lady, including verification of identity and address and a CRB and ISA search, she was able to slip through the net by using what ultimately transpired was a forged passport.
“Once the lady’s crimes came to light, we acted decisively to help secure her arrest and have offered the client compensation for any financial loss suffered.
“It is worth mentioning that we are still looking after this client, in fact, having maintained a good relationship with the family and indeed worked together with them to help bring this lady to justice.”
Another Sick Gema hore(Kahamba) Village Politics in Central Kenya>
Zambian prostitutes offer free sex •For victory over Ghana
PROSTITUTES in Lusaka’s Kanyama, John Laing, Chawama and Kalingalinga compounds offered themselves free of charge to every Jim and Jack as part of their celebration after Zambia beat Ghana 1-0.
A check by The Independent Post (TIP) at nightclubs such as Kanyama’s Kanchembele and Chine Chikayeba found long queues of men waiting to have sex with a limited number of prostitutes.
A single prostitute served nearly 11 men and there were more than 200 men wanting to celebrate Zambia’s first qualification to the Africa Cup final since 1994 in style.
The situation was the same at John Laing’s Corogo night Club which is situated just opposite John Laing Basic School. But at Corogo, a man in his mid twenties was beaten up after he took long to attain orgasm when his turn to have sex with the prostitute came.
“Yes, we beat him up because he took too long to ejaculate. We were too many of us on line and the guy kept on wasting time on top of the prostitute,” said an eye-witness, identified only as James.
And in Chawama as well as Kalingalinga, TIP correspondents say only a handful of prostitutes were made to serve tens of Chipolopolo fans.
But another soccer fan who claims not to have taken part in the ‘mass servicing’ of prostitutes said the development was unfortunate. Mike Tembo suspected that many young people might have contracted the HIV virus and other STIs during the ‘sexual celebration. ’
“I think when Zambia plays the final, free condoms need to be provided so that we can protect our young men. Many of them had sex with the prostitutes without condoms,” Tembo said.
Zambia’s win over Ghana sent the whole Zambia into wild celebration. Soccer fans celebrated the win in all manner of ways. Fortunately, no deaths were recorded at the time this story was published.
Coach Herve Renard said that he was happy that Zambia has told the world through the beating of the Black stars that Ghana are still toddlers.
“We’ve won and I am very happy. At least we’ve shown the world that Ghana are toddlers,” Renard said.
He added that Zambia will now be aiming at beating Ivory Coast on February 12.
Ghana paid the penalty as Asamoah Gyan saw a penalty saved before Zambia scored with their only attack of the second half in a 1-0 win in their African Cup of Nations semi-final in a sodden Bata.
Zambia substitute Emmanuel Mayuka completed a smash-and-grab victory for the Chipolopolo boys as he tucked the ball beyond Ghana keeper Adam Kwarasey from 22 yards on 79 minutes to complete a miserable day for the 2010 World Cup quarter-finalists.
Zambia will return to the Gabon capital of Libreville for the final, 19 years after the fallen heroes were tragically wiped out when a plane crashed heading towards Dakar for a World Cup qualifier with Senegal in 1993.
Under coach Herve Renard, Zambia is certainly physically strong enough to provide a stern test for Ivory Coast.