Corrupt Home Office worker gave stolen ID to Pakistani man that allowed him to stay in the UK illegally for 20 years
- Abadat Ali, 59, has been jailed for 15 months at Leeds Crown Court
- He had been helped by Home Office conspiracy ‘lynchpin’ Shamsu Iqbal
A corrupt Home Office worker gave a stolen ID to a Pakistani man that allowed him to stay in the UK illegally for 20 years.
Abadat Ali arrived in 2004 from Pakistan on a multi-visit visa but was helped to adopt the identity of a man named Jamil Ahmed in an attempt to remain, Leeds Crown Court heard.
He has now been jailed for 15 months, with a judge telling him he could be deported to Pakistan after serving half of the sentence in custody.
Iqbal was a Home Office employee at the centre of a conspiracy which allowed hundreds of illegal immigrants to stay in the country – with the Mail revealing how the corrupt plot netted the gang more than £6.18million.
Iqbal’s co-accused at Croydon Crown Court in 2018 included Sheikh Muhammad Usman, left, and legal case worker Mohammad Khawar Aftab Hussain, right
Iqbal was previously described as the ‘lynchpin’ of a gang exploiting his ‘trusted’ position to falsify records so at least 437 people could remain in the country.
His 11-year jail term was the longest handed down by English courts for conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration, which carries a maximum 14-year sentence.
Home Office statisticians worked out the potential loss to the taxpayer would have been £58million if all involved had claimed benefits over the six years of the scam.
Iqbal and three other men involved in the conspiracy were sentenced to a combined total of 31 years by Judge Peter Gower QC at Croydon Crown Court in April 2018.
Solicitor Sheikh Muhammad Usman was given seven years, legal case worker Mohammad Khawar Aftab Hussain was jailed for six years and fellow case worker and solicitor’s receptionist Mohammad Ibrahim Ali got a seven-year term.
The conspiracy bagged the gang more than £6.18million, with much of the money spirited back to Pakistan, Bangladesh and Dubai.
When ringleader Iqbal was arrested investigators found bank accounts containing more than £1million in cash – whereas his job at the Home Office would have earned him just £23,000 each year.
Read more at https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13055785/Corrupt-Home-Office-worker-stolen-ID-UK-illegally.html
