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56 fake passports for fellow Nigerians

Posted by icSouthlondon on 2005/10/04 | Views: 613 |

56 fake passports for fellow Nigerians


A PASSPORT official who rubber stamped nearly a quarter of all London's fraudulent applications in 12 months has been jailed for five years.

A PASSPORT official who rubber stamped nearly a quarter of all London's fraudulent applications in 12 months has been jailed for five years.

Nigerian Modupeola Akinwale, 37, authorised fake passports for 56 compatriots.

The clerk, who earned £16,000 a year at the UK Passport Office, was a "vitally important cog" in a 20-month scam to help illegal immigants gain entry to this country.

Passport authorities launched investigations after one of her customers was arrested trying to get into the UK in June 2002.


Checks showed Akinwale, of Kennington, rarely called referees to back up claims that applicants were born in the UK or they had known them for years.


She told police she would sometimes fail to make the proper checks when the queue was long or on hot days, Southwark Crown Court heard.


Nicholas Bleaney, prosecuting, told jurors she pushed through applications while in jobs at offices in Petty France, St James' Park, and Globe House in central London.


Mr Bleaney said: "Her job was to process applications for British passports.


"What is alleged the defendant actually did was process fraudulent applications on behalf of applicants with a Nigerian background."


Akinwale, of Guinness Trust Building, Kennington Park, had denied one count of conspiracy to defraud the Secretary of State for the Home Office by procuring his representatives to issue UK passports by falsely representing the applicants were entitled to the passports, between February 27, 2000 and December 12, 2002.


She was jailed on Friday. l In a separate incident, three Nigerian men from Deptford were sent to prison for producing fake passports on Wednesday.


Adetu Nojimu, 50, and Oluranti Oduwole, 31, received 30 months' imprisonment at Woolwich Crown Court. Gabriel Oduwole, 35, got 27 months.


Cops had raided the men's home in Mornington Road on March 16 where they found forged Nigerian and South African passports.


Oluranti Oduwole and Nojimu were in the UK illegally and will be removed from the country after they have served their sentences.

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