Bangladeshi fraudster ordered to repay £92000

A Bangladeshi man who used his mother to claim over £92,000 in false benefit claims has been instructed to repay the money or face an extended jail time.

Mohammed Rashid, from Uplands in Swansea, is currently serving an 18-month prison sentence and claims that he did not benefit from the payments. Unfortunately, in the eyes of the Swansea Crown Court this made little difference when it came to applying the law. Accordingly, Rashid was issued with a confiscation order for £81,543 given that he has already paid back around £11,000 of the amount.

Ali Mohammad Azhaar, barrister for Rashid, argued that his client should not need to repay any of the money as it was his mother, not he, who had benefitted from the payouts. However, according to Judge Peter Heywood stated that this interpretation of the law was wrong due to the fact that Rashid himself had received the payments and therefore was considered to be the beneficiary. Heywood acknowledged that how the money was spent may affect his pocket it would not change the status of the case, claiming that whether the cash had been given over to his mother of spent on holidays or gambling the fact of the matter remains the fraudulent means by which Rashid obtained the payments.

Rashid has pleaded guilty to five offences of obtaining transfers by deception and false accounting, with a request that some 850 similar offences be reconsidered. He had claimed, on his mother’s behalf, pension credit, housing benefits, income support, carer’s allowance and disability allowance. His mother is registered as legally blind meaning Rashid had all of the monies sent directly to him.

Rashid’s mother left for Bangladesh in 2001 but he continued his claims until her death in 2007.