Four jailed in £6m mortgage scam

Four people have been sentenced to over 15 years in prison for their involvement in a £6m false mortgage scam.

Southwark Crown Court heard how Ruth Ayinde-Azeez (26), Isaac Matthews (42), David Hunter (35), and Jason Mercer (36) targeted a number of properties across the UK, provided false mortgage applications for them and using the loans to fund luxurious lifestyles.

Ayinde-Azeez was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to acquire, use or have criminal property and one count of removing criminal property. She was sentenced to four years in prison.

Matthews pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit money laundering and transferring money out of the UK and was sentenced to six years in prison. Hunter pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud and was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison. Mercer pleaded guilty to money laundering and was sentenced to one year and nine months in prison.

Ayinde-Azeez owned a 20% share in a brokerage business, M Solutions and Financial, that played a significant role in the fraud. The business passed false mortgage applications to a firm of solicitors.

Once the mortgage was approved by a lender, the money would be sent to the solicitors client account and then on to two business accounts controlled solely by Akinyele and Matthews. Their businesses, Isaac and Isaacs and Zikkito, have now been dissolved and financial enquiries revealed that over £6m went through the accounts during the six-week fraud.

Detective Constable Terry Lambert from the Economic and Specialist Crime Command of the Fraud Squad, said: “This was a meticulously planned fraud with involvement from a number of different criminals using seemingly legitimate businesses to launder huge amounts of money in a very short space of time.

“The luxurious lifestyles they were living shows a complete disregard for the law and it also makes Ayinde-Azeez's defence that she did not know anything about the laundered money laughable.”

Officers from the Fraud Squad want to trace Victor Ayinde-Azeez, aged 32, in connection with this enquiry.