Friday November 2,2012
By David Pilditch



AN asylum seeker who masterminded an audacious plot to steal a staggering £4million from taxpayers was jailed for six years yesterday.

Shameless Ruth Nabuguzi became rich beyond her dreams at the expense of hard-working citizens after overseeing an astonishing 20-year scam.

The fortune enabled Nabuguzi to build a complex of luxury apartments, shops, restaurants and a hotel in her home city of Kampala, Uganda.

Nabuguzi, 49, created fake identities for up to 100 children as members of the family crime ring claimed benefits worth £900,000.

Campaigners last night branded the case a damning indictment of Britain’s broken welfare system.

Yesterday eight members of Nabuguzi’s “family firm” were jailed for a total of 19 years over the racket.

The Ugandan fraudsters fooled immigration officials before pocketing a fortune by making multiple bogus claims from several Government departments.

Nabuguzi pretended to be suffering from HIV and claimed costly drugs in numerous identities – netting £2.28million worth of medication. Croydon Crown Court heard the drug supplies were shipped to her homeland and sold on for huge profits.

Nabuguzi needed no proof of her condition to be supplied the medication and has never been tested to see if she has the disease.

Nabuguzi was given leave to remain in the UK at least three times after claiming asylum using separate identities. She used so many fake names during the scam that investigators believe the true extent of the fraud may never be known.

Police are not even certain that Nabuguzi is the fraudster’s real name.

Yesterday she showed no emotion as Judge Nicholas Ainley told her: “This is a fraud on a huge scale, not only that but it is an outrageous abuse of the hospitality that was offered to you by this country when you came here in trouble.”

Nabuguzi, of Forest Gate, east London, admitted 27 fraud and immigration offences.

Four people admitted their role in the plot while four more members of the gang were convicted after a six-week trial.

A jury heard the group conspired to create, use and exploit false identities in order to carry out the staggering fraud.

Nabuguzi came to the UK in 1991 and claimed asylum for herself and four children she had left behind in Uganda. Three years later she used the name Jane Namusisi to apply for asylum again – along with two more children.

In 1999 – using the name Pauline Zalwango – she applied once more, this time with three children.

The court heard that as soon as she gained leave to remain in one identity, alongside her “children”, she began claiming benefits and created a new identity to start the process again using “exactly the same criminal modus operandi”. Some of the identities she “offered to third parties to facilitate entry for those third parties”, said prosecutor Paul Raudnitz.

The court heard the family’s myriad benefits claims totalled £900,000 including income support, disability living allowance, housing benefit, council tax and tax credits. Fraud relating to accommodation costs and sub-letting of flats cost an extra £650,000. Nabuguzi claimed a further £154,000 educating “family” members – with one higher education course alone costing taxpayers £37,500.

The complex scam finally unravelled after investigators raided the east London home of her son Dennis Kyeyune, 29.

Police found a black holdall hidden on a shed roof which contained a horde of fake documents.

Kyeyune was jailed for two-and-a-half years while Nabuguzi’s daughter, mother-of-two Jordan Sebutemba, 26, was sentenced to 12 months suspended for two years. Albert Kaidi, 27, Sebutemba’s ex, was jailed for 30 months. Lamulah Sekiziyuvu, 36, a former partner of Keyuyne and Kaidi, was jailed for three years.

Lina Katongola, 29, was jailed for one year and Mathy Matumba, 50, was jailed for four years for a further £340,000 benefit fraud.

Eddie Semanda, 31, was sentenced to four months imprisonment, suspended for two years. Betty Tibakawa, 24, the ninth member of the gang, will be sentenced on November 12. Last night the UK Border Agency said the gang faced deportation after they have served their jail time and will be barred from re-entering the UK for at least 10 years. They also face confiscation proceedings.

Tony Erne, of the UK Border Agency, said: “These sentences show that abuse of our immigration system for profit will not be tolerated.”

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/355781/Gang-get-19-years-for-4m-benefit-scam