Three sentenced for £500,000 Comic Relief, Children in Need and Big Lottery fraud

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Three sentenced for £500,000 Comic Relief, Children in Need and Big Lottery fraud 3

Governance | Niki May Young | 20 Sep 2010

A Tottenham trio who fraudulently claimed half a million pounds of charity funds and sold secrets of how to do it have been sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court.

Brothers Kitumbula (pictured) and Kyalemaninwa Mazambi from Tottenham were sentenced to four years and three and a half years respectively and Mapendo Kasiba, Kitumbula’s wife, was given a two-year suspended sentence.

Half a million pounds was accrued by the trio from charities and grant-giving bodies including Comic Relief, Children in Need and the Big Lottery Fund over a number of years.

The three, originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, were found guilty on 4 August. Detective Constable Roger Boydell-Smith, who led police investigations at Scotland Yard, said: "These individuals cynically betrayed their positions of trust by systematically stealing charitable funds raised in good faith by members of the public.

"Money that should have helped those in need was used instead for their own activities."

Ringleader Kitumbula Mazambia successfully applied over a number of years for grants of up to £60,000 for various “vague” projects claiming to benefit people from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Suspiciously similar grant applications

But the scam was scuppered in 2004 when the Big Lottery Fund queried suspiciously similar applications. The Metropolitan Police, the Charity Commission and other funding bodies were then informed.

While little proof of charitable work being carried out was evident, copious volumes of evidence of the funds supplementing their personal lifestyles was found during the subsequent Scotland Yard investigation. Evidence of the trio selling secrets of how to defraud charities was also found.

Six further defendants were earlier convicted in separate trials sharing a combined sentence of 17 years in prison. One defendant, Bulunda Lungumbu, was found not guilty.

In a joint statement, the Big Lottery Fund, Comic Relief and Children in Need said: “These convictions reflect the shared commitment as funders of charities and of the Metropolitan Police’s Specialist Crime Command to vigorously pursue this kind of pernicious abuse of charitable funding.

“It is vital that the public, who make possible so much important charitable work, are confident that their money is going to intended bona fide good causes.”

Directory: Big Lottery Fund | Comic Relief

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Paul
National Benevolent Institution
22 Sep 2010

Understood, but the Trustees of Comic Relief and Children in Need (I cannot speak about the BLF) have no business "getting money out of the door quickly" just because a man at the ministry says so. Indeed, these funds have got nothing to do with the government at all. The primary duty of the Trustees is to the donors to make sure that their (ie the donors') money is well spent.

[Reply]

CJ
22 Sep 2010

Given the volumes of money distributed by organisations such as BLF it's inherent that people will attempt to defraud it.

The sponsoring Ministry's push to get money out of the door quickly and with less contact with applicants, whilst encouraging the targeting of grants to smaller organisations, meant that applications became more and more desk assessed to reduce operating costs.

Bear that in mind when the current Government wants to reduce the admin costs of distributing bodies.

As for checks and balances subsequently put in place - well if home addresses for all trustees, and main contacts for applications, a whole heap of extra verification and assessment steps, and the wholesale removal of the programme that the people targeted gives you an indication of the steps taken.

[Reply]

Paul
National Benevolent Institution
21 Sep 2010

What lessons are there for other charities? How could it be that such large sums of money were made in grants to bogus organisations? What procedures and safeguards did the charities have in place to prevent fraud of this scale, and what new procedures and safeguards will they be introducing?

[Reply]

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