Two men who invented donations to claim £500,000 in gift aid have both been given prison sentences of 30 months.
Abdulshakour Juma, 43, and Ashraf Salim Ali, 42, both from Essex, said they were trustees of East Coast of African Community and the Bongo Community Association charities and told HMRC and the Charity Commission that they were supporting the East African community in Southend. Over a 15-month period they submitted gift aid claims totalling £534,640.95 to HMRC.
HMRC grew suspicious and, after £140,000 was paid out, stopped their repayments and began an investigation. It worked with the Charity Commission and Essex Police before arresting both men in June 2013 on suspicion of making fraudulent gift aid claims and money laundering.
Mike O’Grady, assistant director of the fraud investigation service at HMRC, said: “The fact that this pair would stoop so low as to use a charity as a front to extort money from the taxpayer is shameful. Gift aid is in place to support legitimate charities and offer extra funding, not as an extra income for greedy criminals to abuse the system.
“HMRC and our partners, the Charity Commission and Essex Police, have brought to justice two selfish criminals who had they not been stopped would have robbed our public services of a great deal more.”
Juma was sentenced to 30 months in prison on 21 December 2015. Ali failed to appear at the hearing. He was jailed for 30 months on Monday 11 January 2016. Both pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering offences when they appeared at Basildon Magistrates Court in November 2015.
Both charities were registered with the Commission in 2012. The Bongo Community Association was removed from the register in 2015. The East Coast of African Community is still registered but has never filed accounts. Juma and Ali are still listed as trustees, along with a third man, Jamal Nassel.
A Commission spokesman said: "This sentence also disqualifies two individuals from acting as trustees of charities. As the charity has now ceased to exist we are taking steps to recover the remaining funds in the charity account to allocate to another charity with similar objects. The charity will then be removed from the register."
On sentencing Juma, His Honour Judge Graham said: “There are two reasons this sort of offending is taken seriously - it is a fraud on the public purse and it makes life much more difficult for people making genuine claims.”
