Ibrahim Bundu processed 28 bogus housing applications over three years. Included applications for his mother, an ex-wife and his estranged wife. It has been labelled one of the biggest frauds of its kind ever uncovered. Sentenced to four years jail, but can serve two years of them on licence.
Ibrahim Bundu processed 28 bogus housing applications over a period of three years, in what has been labelled one of the biggest frauds of its kind ever uncovered
A corrupt town hall official gave sought-after council homes to family members and illegal immigrants in return for tens of thousands of pounds in backhanders.
Ibrahim Bundu, who worked in a council’s homelessness unit, pocketed up to £4,000 a time for helping people jump the queue by faking documents and medical records.
He arranged for homes for members of his extended family, including his mother, wife and ex-wife, in a scam which cost taxpayers at least £3.7million. Bundu himself netted at least £50,000.
Investigators found he was behind 28 bogus applications in Southwark, South London, where more than 20,000 people are on the local authority’s waiting list.
Many of those helped by Bundu, 50, were from the war-torn country of Sierra Leone, from where he had travelled to Britain in 1988.
Yesterday the former car mechanic was jailed for four years for the ‘audacious’ scam, believed to be one of the biggest of its kind.
Sentencing him at Woolwich Crown Court, Judge Douglas Marks Moore said his actions ‘undermined the trust’ necessary for ‘the functioning of our society.’
He said: ‘It was a hugely organised, premeditated system that was in place and you were instrumental in its development.
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