DWP orders man who claimed benefits for nearly 200 fake kids to pay £2million

01 January 2024 , 16:13

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Ali Mohamed has faced further repercussions following his grand child benefits con (Image: TeessideLive)

A benefits fraud has been ordered to pay back £2million after he stole the identities of nearly 200 kids.

Ali Bana Mohamed, 42, from Manchester, has been told to stump up the costs within three months or be slapped with a nine-year jail sentence. The scammer was put behind bars last year after he conned taxpayers out of around £1.7 million.

As part of the scam, he asked his friends and family to file benefits claims under 70 different names and used the botched birth certificates of 188 kids. However, HMRC spotted calls from two identical phones in what they assumed were unrelated claims.

HMRC launched an investigation named Operation Paratrooper and identified that Mohamed and six other people had made child benefit and tax credit claims with 70 names from the dates April 2007 and July 2016.

Mohamed had a "relatively simple" way of keeping track of his crimes and stashed handwritten books in his closet which detailed what he had done. He confessed to 29 offences and was jailed for three and a half years in prison in 2022. The fraudster was already serving 16 years behind bars in relation to drugs and immigration offences.

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Six of the people who helped him carry out the fraudulent activities were also hit with jail sentences of a combined 13 years last year, reports Metro. One of them had their sentence suspended. Kevin Slack, prosecuting, previously told the court: "The individual conspiracies in which each of these six defendants were involved formed smaller parts of a massive fraud perpetrated by Ali Bana Mohamed.

“His fraud was targeted at the UK’s tax credit and child benefit system. A dedicated investigation led to establishing that Ali Bana Mohamed had advanced child benefit and tax credit claims in approximately 70 different adult names over a nine-year period between April 2007 and July 2016.

“In all, 188 different children, who were entirely fictitious, were claimed for these claims. In total, £1,766,594.87 was paid out in relation to these fraudulent claims, comprising £345,642.80 in child benefit payments and £1,420,952.07 in tax credit payments.”

Mohamed has now been told to return £2,164,828.30 following a confiscation hearing at Liverpool Crown Court. Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride commented: "Our welfare system is predicated on fairness, and we will make sure that those who need our help receive it and those who wish to exploit the system face justice. So as benefit fraud becomes more sophisticated, so must we. This latest case is a testament to the tenacity of our expert anti-fraud squad who saved the hard-working taxpayer £1.1billion last year."

Monica Charsley