Two Nigerians Jailed Over £2.3m London Olympic Authority fraud
Two UK Residents of Nigeria parentage
have been jailed for money laundering following a £2.3m fraud against
the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA). A BBC report monitored by bloggers say Abayomi Olowo, 48, of Windsor Road, Harrow, north-west
London, guilty of four charges, received a prison sentence of
four-and-a-half years.
Ayodele Odukoya, 42, of Paignton Close, Romford, Essex, guilty of two charges,
was sentenced to three years and nine months.
Six people were cleared of charges.
The group was accused of laundering the cash after fraudsters tricked the ODA out of £2.3m.
Ansumana Kamara was the ringleader
behind the £2.3m fraud against the ODA and an £86,000 fraud against
Skanska, the construction firm working on landscaping the Olympic Park.
He obtained the £2.3m by pretending
to be Skanska's finance director and writing to the ODA with a change of
account details ahead of a bank transfer. The account details he gave
were his own.
He pleaded guilty in September 2010 and was later jailed for three-and-a-half years.
Attempts were also made to defraud
companies which had contracts with Skanska, including Dorset County
Council - responsible for building the Weymouth Relief Road for the
Olympic Route Network - Network Rail and a company called Universal
Builders Supply.
The main plan, which was foiled, was
to disguise the money trail by sending £2m to Nigeria before buying a
parade of shops in Wolverhampton, said the Crown Prosecution Service
(CPS).
Judge Martin Beddoe, sentencing Odukoya and Olowo, called it "a very significant sum of money".
'Payments system reviewed'
He said: "I am told of the inevitable effect on your families as a consequence of what you did.
"I take the view that is something
you should have thought about before you embarked upon this determined
involvement in crime."
Sue Patten, head of the CPS central
fraud group said: "In this case, the fraudsters directly targeted scarce
public funds earmarked to ensure the success of London 2012."
The ODA said 95% of the money had
been recovered and it hoped the outstanding £68,000 would be recovered
through further investigation by Operation Podium.
A spokesman said: "Our payments
system was reviewed and strengthened immediately after the incident to
further limit the risk of fraud."
Earlier, Shamsidden Owo, 75, of
Brookfield Road, Hackney, east London, was cleared of four counts of
money laundering. Shakeela Ayub, 28, of Brudenell Road, Leeds, was
acquitted of two counts.
Nadeem Khan, 38, of Richmond
Crescent, Slough, Berkshire; Mbinty Kargbo, 26, of Crofton Road,
Camberwell, south-east London; Sanjeev Kumar, 30, of Bell Street,
Bilston, West Midlands; and Sakiru Adewale, 58, of no fixed abode, were
each cleared of one charge.
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