Adviser is sentenced over mortgage fraud

A religious teacher used a financial adviser with a previously unblemished record to help perpetuate a mortgage fraud.

Maboob Abbas, 53, owner of Jaffrey Financial Services in Bradford, pleaded guilty to one count of fraud at Leeds Crown Court. He received a suspended two-year jail sentence and was ordered to do 192 hours of community work.

He admitted knowingly helping Saeed Shah, 45, to falsify income and employment references as part of a mortgage application.

Shah, a father of six, was jailed for five years and eight months for a £1.7m fraud which enabled him to purchase ten properties, although he was on benefits.

Most of the properties were let out, but one property, bought in 2002, was sold three years later at a profit of £73,573.

In another case, he bought a right-to-buy council house in his own name but sold it 18 months later to himself, using another name, for a grossly inflated price, obtaining a different mortgage, and claiming he earned £100,000. He pocketed the difference of £160,000.

In yet another case, he took out a loan against a property but fell into arrears and allowed it to be repossessed. He then bought back the property in another name at a discount.

Lenders who fell for the cons were told that Shah worked for the Muslim Educational Centre in Boundary Farm Road, Leeds. In reality, this was a derelict building which had had no utilities to it for years.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud and seven of obtaining money by deception.

The court heard that Shah created either bogus identities or used the identities of people far away in Pakistan, and set up bank accounts in their names.

Judge Peter Collier QC said it had involved considerable planning. He told him: “You persisted in a course of conduct over several years. It involved two properties in particular. In relation to those, you obtained mortgage advances by very gross deception.”

Altogether, Shah obtained £1,777,200 in loans and advances over six years. He made £391,000 out of the fraud and cost financial institutions, including Abbey National and the Cheltenham and Gloucester, nearly £450,000.