Nigerian Fraudster who fleeced UK Taxpayers £2.4m by helping illegal immigrants obtain council homes JAILED

Trudy Ali-Balogun, 55, used her role as a £25,000 a year housing officer at Southwark Council to help process 24 bogus homelessness claims.

 

She was paid a £2,000 'backhander' for each application she approved and treated herself to holidays around the world. But she was caught out during a police sting and was today jailed for five years for her role in the "sophisticated" operation.

She faced sentence yesterday at Inner London Crown Court alongside Biayo Awotiwon, 47, Adeyemi Oyedele, 48, Kudiartu Falana, 60, and Joseph Olaiya, 53 - who all benefitted from the scam. Their trial was part of the wider investigation known as Operation Bronze which has been running since 2011 and has so far yielded more than 30 convictions.

Ibrahim Bundu, a former homeless housing case worker, was previously jailed at Woolwich Crown Court for processing false homeless housing applications in return for backhanders.

He is currently serving a six year sentence after failing to pay back the £100,000 ordered by the courts

Ali-Balogun, who studied criminology at university, was processing bogus applications while working alongside Bundu from November 2003 until her suspension in April 2005.

She approved false birth certificates for children who never existed, as well as made-up wage slips, bank statements and fake foreign passports. Many of the applicants she helped within the Nigerian community were in the country illegally, the court heard.

The fraud cost the council about £2.4m and left genuine homeless people without a roof above their heads.

Michael Goodwin, prosecuting, said: "She sought to exploit and capitalise in the weaknesses and procedures which were clearly in place at the time. "Her misconduct represents an abuse of trust placed in her by the local authority."

He explained that the case worker was paid 'backhanders' totalling more than £20,000 and used the bungs to fund trips abroad.

Ali-Balogun was said to have been responsible for 24 applications which she knew contained forged signatures and at least 20 properties were occupied by tenants who were not entitled to them.

Four applicants - including Falana - ended up buying the properties at a reduced price as a result of their deception using the Government's 'Right To Buy' scheme.

These properties are now likely to be subject to county court proceedings to determine whether they should be handed back.