Indian couple plead GUILTY to £130k benefits fraud
AN Indian couple who duped immigration officials and swindled more than £130,000 in benefits were facing jail yesterday.
Mohammed Wadiwala and his wife Zenabbibi (pictured) made up a story about persecution in India
Mohammed Wadiwala, 42, and his wife Zenabbibi, 44, used false identities in the name Sheikh to pocket cash for themselves and five children.
They claimed asylum saying they faced persecution over their Muslim/Hindu mixed marriage.
Some form of custody will be appropriate.
But officials in India could not trace them and their case dragged on.
Over five and a half years they raked in nearly £2,000 a month to house and feed themselves through the National Asylum Seeker’s Support Service.
Had their real names been known they would have been deported within a “matter of months” of arriving in the UK in 2007.
Instead they received £134,438 in hand-outs.
The couple, now living in Blackburn, Lancs, spoke through an Urdu interpreter to plead guilty to fraud at Preston Crown Court on Tuesday.
Judge Ian Leeming QC deferred sentence until next month, saying: “Some form of custody will be appropriate.”