Brothers jailed for £220k fraud

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Two brothers have been jailed for falsely claiming more than £220,000 in housing and council tax benefits.

Javeid Akhtar and Banaras Ali were sentenced to four-and-a-half years each after admitting conspiracy to commit fraud at Leeds Crown Court.

The court heard the men owned five houses with a total value of £1m. The claims centred on three homes in the Chapeltown and Roundhay areas of Leeds.

Leeds City Council said the benefit fraud was the city's biggest yet.

The court heard the brothers' family swapped ownership of the properties, claiming on forms that the brothers were landlords and their wives and sisters were tenants.

Roger Birch QC, prosecuting, said: "It's not a case of musical chairs but of musical houses."

The scale and size of this fraud is breathtaking Councillor Richard Brett

Sentencing, Judge Alistair McCallum told the defendants that the case was at the "extreme range of benefit fraud".

He said: "The sums of money that you stole from just the ordinary hardworking taxpayers who go out and earn a living to enable our benefits system to operate at all was substantial."

Investigators from Leeds City Council found that the family had wrongly claimed a total of £223,843.36.

Wives arrested

The inquiry started in September 2005 when it was discovered that Akhtar's wife Saida Khatoon was paying council tax for a property on West Park Avenue in Leeds, but was claiming housing benefit and council tax benefit from one on nearby Mexborough Drive.

The council then discovered that the family had been falsely claiming housing benefit since 1999.

Police arrested Akhtar and Ali, along with their brother Tasharaf Ali and their wives Saida Khatoon and Noreen Akhtar, in December 2005.

Councillor Richard Brett, executive board member for benefits, said: "The scale and size of this fraud is breathtaking and it took the council's investigators some time to pick through what was a convoluted and calculated plot over many years.

"This is Leeds' biggest case of benefit fraud and we are glad to see that the court has sent a message out that benefit fraud will not be tolerated in this city."

In return for guilty pleas from Akhtar and Ali, charges against Khatoon, Noreen Akhtar and Tasharaf Ali have been kept on file.