Five Nigerians in the UK Sent to Jail Over 2.4 Million Euro Fraud

Five Nigerians have been sentenced to jail for various housing frauds in Southwark, London, UK Evening Standard reports.

Trudy Ali-Balogun, 55, a Southwark Council Officer was said to have given tenancies worth £2.4 million to fraudsters claiming to be homeless. She also took bribes of £2,000 to wave through bogus applications which included fake birth certificates passports and wage slips and spent the money on foreign holidays, Inner London Crown Court heard.

Ali-Balogun who approved at least 20 bogus applications for housing between 2003 and 2005, also altered records to show applicants were “homeless”. She was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment after she was found guilty in April.

Biayo Awotiwon, 47, who received £226,000 of housing for 12 years at a property in Tooley Street in Southwark, and Adeyemi Olalekan Oyedele, 48, a former assistant to the Nigerian High Commissioner who is refusing to leave his Bermondsey flat were both sentenced to 5 months imprisonment.

Kudiartu Falana, 60, was jailed for five months, suspended for 12 months, and ordered to complete 200 hours of community service. She obtained a four-bedroom property in central London in 2004 which she bought it in 2007 at a £60,000 discount under the Right to Buy scheme.

Joseph Akin Oliaya, 53, who invented children and used a fake passport to get housing was jailed for six months, suspended for 12 months, and ordered to complete 200 hours of community service.

Awotiwon, Oyedele, and Falana were found guilty of obtaining services by deception, while Olaiya was found guilty of attempting to obtain service by deception. They all denied the charges.