Seven people have been sentenced after completing millions of pounds worth of mortgage fraud that involved stealing ownership of homes and remortgaging them.
Four gang members were jailed, while another three were handed suspended sentences after the £3.5 million fraud which involved taking out mortgages on ten properties that were not theirs.
Former property tycoon Marshall Joseph, 56, from Altrincham, and professional gambler Alick Kapikanya, 45, put together the scam to steal luxury homes and use them to obtain loans by enlisting the help of a crooked conveyancer and three other conmen pretending to be legitimate homeowners, using fake passports or utility bills.
The pair arranged for property titles to be transferred from the real home owners by taking Peter Tanner, Irene Perciful and Myra Trigg into solicitors offices all over Britain and getting them to pose as the real homeowners, saying they wanted to sign the homes over to Kapikanya and Joseph, after which huge loans would be secured against them.
The real property owners – all elderly, including widows and widowers – had no idea that their titles had been stolen or illegal loans had been taken out against their homes.
Joseph and Kapikanya directly received £3.5m and were attempting to raise another £3.3m when they were stopped.
The pair were only caught after Marshall defaulted on repaying the loans that had been fraudulently obtained.
Detective Constable Craig Moylon, of the unit, said: “This was a meticulously planned series of frauds which involved different people playing different parts, all for a common purpose, with no regard for the devastation they were to have on many innocent parties.
“Kapikanya used the funds he raised to gamble heavily at many of the most exclusive casinos in the country while driving very expensive cars and staying in the finest hotels, sometimes for months at a time.
“The offenders carried out their actions with no regard for the lending organisations or the innocent home owners, who aside from the traumatic experience of fearing they had lost their homes or were potentially liable for loans of hundreds of thousands of pounds, were forced to instruct solicitors to have their homes put back in their name and the secured loans removed from their titles.”
Kapikanya was jailed for six years and Joseph for four years at Manchester Crown Court. Robertson, 49, and Irene Perciful, 48, from Duxford, were jailed for 30 months and 12 months respectively, while Tanner, 54, from Pampisford, Cambridgeshire, Trigg, 57, from Manchester, and Campbell, 31, from Banstead, Surrey, were given suspended sentences
