Womanising Nigerian fraudster hijacked identities of soldiers and nurses to open 725 bank accounts in £1.3m benefits swindle

Chibuikem Uzoma-Ubani, left, was jailed for six years for money laundering while the mother of his two children, Katrina Papiernikova, right, was cleared

A womanising fraudster who hijacked the identities of soldiers and nurses in a £1.3million benefits plot has today been jailed for six years.

Chibuikem Uzoma-Ubani, 29, persuaded several lovers to help him launder the profits from the swindle that targeted tax credits and Sure Start maternity grants.

Denisa Camacho, 28, of Godmanchester, Cambridgeshire, and Katrina Papiernikova, 27, of  Romford, Essex both had relationships with Uzoma-Ubani, after arriving in the UK from Slovakia and were accused of turning a blind eye to his activities.

In one such instance, a serving member of the army, had his identity hijacked, and not only were cheques diverted to Mr Uzoma-Ubami, but applications for benefits were made in his name, albeit in Uzoma-Ubami’s hand writing.’

The prosecutor added that Uzoma-Ubami had 159 bank accounts, either in his name or an alias, and police seized £200,000 from them.

Leonard Nwanneneh controlled at least 42 accounts and admitted he had used many more after illegally entering the country.

‘The total number of bank accounts was 752, used in the identity frauds,’ said Mr Finnigan.

‘Of those 752, 282 and were active accounts in that they received the proceeds of the frauds, and during the course of the investigation over £1million had passed through the

The remaining 360 or so accounts were being prepared for future frauds.’

Sentencing at The Old Bailey today, Judge John Price said: ‘It was an extremely sophisticated fraud using three different types; intercepting cheques, tax credit fraud, and false maternity grants.

‘These required several false identities, and false national insurance numbers.

‘In some cases they assumed the identity of nurses, falsifying their pin numbers to potentially have taken £1.3million over a number of years.

‘This was a substantial fraud that targeted the benefits system.

‘Tax credits are there to help poor people, the money you took, took it away from them.’

Jailing Uzoma-Ubani for six years he said: ‘I have no doubt that you were a leader of this group, who organised it and kept it running.

‘I will sentence you on the basis that it was sheer good luck, that you didn’t manager to acquire the full £1.3 million.

‘If you have any money hidden away, the authorities will find it, and you will pay it back, or you will spend more time in prison.’

Sentencing Leonard Nwannenah to six years jail Judge Price said: ‘The worst thing about you in this case is that you got your brother and his wife involved, and for that you should feel guilty.’

Speaking after sentence a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: ‘Uzoma-Ubani and his co-conspirators had attempted to swindle the Government departments and many individual victims out of more than £1.3m.

‘Their sole motivation appears to have been greed; to fund their lifestyles.

‘This was a long and complex investigation which involved preparing 5,000 exhibits, analysing more than 100 fingerprints, 800 bank accounts and preparing more than 25,000 pages of evidence.

‘The conviction of this gang should act as a warning to others that the UK’s law enforcement agencies will use all the methods at our disposal to root out their corrupt practices and bring those responsible to justice.’