Unlicensed mortgage broker jailed for £62,000 loan scam

Unlicensed mortgage broker jailed for £62,000 loan scam




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By Dawn Murden

An Oxford mortgage broker has been jailed for two years, following the “professionally planned” loan fraud he carried out over a six-month period in 2006.

Shahzad Khan, 37, falsely claimed £62,000 by creating counterfeit documents, where he pretended to be real customers – some of whom are believed to have been involved in the fraudulent claims, according to a report in regional newspaper, The Oxford Times.

He applied for cash advances on their behalf, but then siphoned the funds into his own account.

The largest individual sum of money he claimed was £15,000, when he impersonated a couple who were applying for a loan. 

The unlicensed mortgage broker was finally caught and convicted of ten counts of obtaining money transfers by deception.

Khan appeared at Reading Crown Court on Thursday, where Judge Mary Jane Mowat sentenced him to two years in prison for each of the 10 charges, to be served concurrently.

She said: “In every case false details were inputted into the system – details about employment and assets of the borrowers, some of whom it is pretty clear were complicit in the frauds but some of them were not. You were if not the architect of this fraudulent scheme, clearly the major operator.

 

“You were a self-styled mortgage broker albeit unlicensed and unregistered.”

 

She said the frauds were “professionally planned.”

 

Peter Grant defending the mortgage broker said that when Khan’s father had passed away, it had been his responsibility to support the extended family.

 

The court was told that Khan was expected to pay for university fees and living costs of his siblings in Pakistan.

 

He also said that the defendant would not have received all of the falsely claimed money.

 

“One cannot say Mr Khan profited to the tune of £62,000. It would have been some sum significantly less.

 

“A number of victims of this were blatantly not telling the truth about their involvement in all of this.”

 

Thames Valley police hopes to retrieve the money under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

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