Olayeye/Emerson Saints and Scroungers

Saints And Scroungers puts the spotlight on benefit thieves,

people who steal millions of pounds every year from British taxpayers.

We also search out the saints, people who help put unclaimed cash

into the hands of those who really need it.

Saints And Scroungers is all about busting benefit thieves

who steal millions every year and the crack team of investigators

determined to scupper their devious scams.

We also shine a light on those who genuinely need the money

and the people who help them get it.

They are our saints.

The Saints get help and the fraudsters get their comeuppance.

Coming up on today's show - a pair of tax-credit-stealing scroungers

finally get their dues after nearly two decades of abusing the benefits system

because they didn't know when to quit.

Mr Olaleye was released from prison in November 2007.

One of the first things he did was ring up our department

asking why the child tax credit claims had been stopped.

And from the scroungers to the saints.

An ex-soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder

battles to set up a charity to help others in the same situation.

I actually decided, "Hey, what a good idea.

"This needs to be done in the UK. What about our troops?"

One of the things that makes this country great

is that we will give money to people who genuinely need it.

The only trouble with that, wherever you find money, you'll also find people that want to steal it.

Abiodun Olaleye came to this country from Nigeria in 1990

and was allowed to stay for six months as a visitor

on condition he didn't work and didn't claim benefits.

Within months, his wife Olanrewaju Olaleye followed him here,

stating she too was just visiting.

20 years later, the couple are still here and the suspicion is

that they've committed a massive benefit fraud

involving 16 fictitious children,

four very real properties,

and all of it amounting to a whopping £150,000.

High time for the fraud investigators to sort this pair of scroungers out.

Their case was referred to HM Revenue and Customs' fraud department.

In 2007, the Department of Work and Pensions contacted our department

and advised us that the Crown Prosecution Service

had prosecuted somebody for a false passport and false employment.

That tip-off was about none other than Abiodun Olaleye.

Since first arriving in this country in 1990,

he's made repeated claims for asylum,

faked a marriage with a UK citizen in order to stay,

and has been working when he shouldn't, using a false passport under the name Lateef Aremu.

It's this crime that finally caught up with him.

Olaleye was prosecuted for this crime

and he received a 16-month custodial sentence.

He served six months' imprisonment between May 2007 and November 2007.

The authorities have finally got his number

and HMRC have been looking into the case while Abiodun is behind bars.

There's a rumour that as well as the asylum system,

the benefit system has also been abused,

not just by him either. His wife, Olanrewaju, is also in the frame.

The DWP supplied us with the three names, Abiodun Olaleye,

his wife Olanrewaju Olaleye, and the false passport name of Lateef Aremu.

We then used these names to check against our records

for claims to working tax credit and child tax credits

and we found that all three names featured.

All three had started claiming tax credits starting in December 2002.

Hang on a second. Before we go any further,

I think I should just explain what these tax credits actually are.

If you're working but on a low income,

you could be entitled to working tax credits to help you out a bit.

Child tax credits on the other hand

are paid out to people who are responsible for at least one child,

whether that person is working or not.

The amount of children you have and the amount of income is all taken into account

to work out how many tax credits you're entitled to.

The problem is some people, like the Olaleyes, abuse this Government handout.

The first claim that we found was made by Mr Olaleye in the false name of Lateef Aremu.

This was in respect of two children

at an address at Eddystone Tower in Deptford in London.

As HMRC investigators delve deeper into Olaleye, his wife and his alias, Lateef Aremu,

it just gets worse.

Working alongside Steve was another fraud investigator,

who, because of the nature of her work, has asked to remain anonymous.

In March 2003 Abiodun Olaleye made a claim for

working and child tax credit

from the same address as the claim from Lateef Aremu.

He said that he was a single parent of three children

and that he worked in the security industry

and that he was paying £240 a week to a registered child carer for childcare to the three children.

The next claim we checked was in respect of Mrs Olaleye.

This was round about the same time, also in March 2003.

She claimed for

four children, working tax credits and child tax credits.

She also said she was employed as a nurse.

So that's already nine children the Olaleyes are claiming tax credits for,

four in her name, three in his and two under his alias, Mr Aremu.

And it doesn't end there.

Abiodun's fake family continues to grow bigger.

Mr Olaleye contacted our department in December 2003,

when he added another child to his tax credit claim.

In the April 2004, he wrote to our department

and added two further children.

In July 2004 he telephoned again and added a further child.

That was a total of seven children he was claiming for

as a single parent at the Eddystone Tower address.

In December 2004,

Olanrewaju Olaleye wrote a letter to the tax credit office

saying that she was now guardians for two further children

and wanted those adding to her claim.

So altogether on her claim, she claimed for six children.

Now before I go round the bend, let me just get this straight.

Olaleye and his alias Lateef Aremu are claiming for multiple kids

out of the Eddystone Towers address,

but his wife is registered as living elsewhere

and claiming for her multiple children

out of an address in Gubbins Lane, Romford.

It's at this point in the scam

where their greed starts getting the better of them.

Mr Olaleye contacted our department once again in 2004

but this time pretending to be Mr Lateef Aremu.

He added two more children on the first contact in January 2004

and later in the year, in November 2004, added two further children.

That meant that Mr Lateef Aremu, or Mr Olaleye,

was claiming for another six children in the name of Lateef Aremu.

Hang on a second, I've almost run out of fingers and toes.

That is 19 children they are claiming for,

13 of which are supposed to be living in one of those flats there.

You cannot be serious.

Oh, yes, they can.

HMRC spread out their search.

We contacted immigration, we looked at the Department Of Education

and registers of births, marriages and deaths.

We found that out of the 19 children, in fact only three existed,

real children that Mr and Mrs Olaleye had.

Six were resident in Nigeria that they had no care for

and ten were entirely fictitious.

The amount of benefit fraud this pair is running up is mounting steadily.

From the second this investigation started,

HMRC stopped all child tax credits and working tax credits to the couple.

Upon his release from jail in 2007,

where Abiodun had been serving time for using a false passport to gain employment,

he cheekily wanted to know where his steady income had gone.

One of the first things he did was ring up our department

and ask why the child tax credit claims had been stopped.

They invited him and his wife down for an interview,

an interview under caution, that is.

The fact he's still in the country to face these allegations

could be considered a mixed blessing for HMRC.

He was prosecuted and did face deportation,

but while he was in prison he appealed against that deportation order

on the grounds of human rights,

the right to family life so he could see his wife and children.

The UK did not pursue that. He won on appeal and remained in the UK.

So HMRC couldn't deport them,

but as they began to dig even further into

the couple's financial affairs,

even more shocking sides to this scam emerged.

The checks between Land Registry and the bank checks

revealed that Mr and Mrs Olaleye had four properties in total between them.

For now it's farewell to fraudsters and hello to the people we call our saints,

those in genuine need of help but who are too proud or don't know how to claim what is rightfully theirs,

and the people who point them in the right direction.

Ex-soldier Rich Emerson is a man who's paid a price for his country.

His experiences in the first Gulf War

left him suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder,

an affliction that has ruined his life

for over a decade since returning from Iraq.

Richard moved to Cornwall,

but still lived with haunting memories of his experiences of war.

Some of my vivid memories were Iraqi soldiers jumping off the lorries on fire and things

and dealing with a lot of burnt bodies

but also dealing with a lot of, um, a lot of Iraqis that had surrendered.

Because we were tanks, we could fire from quite a long range.

So we were coming across the stuff that we had done,

the contacts that we, you know... The reality started kicking in then.

We kind of realised what we were actually doing, yeah, which wasn't very nice,

and I started to get nightmares, flashbacks,

anger management problems, anxiety, depression as well.

So that's when things started to go wrong and then I lost everything.

Rich had lost marriages, jobs,

his home to an illness he hadn't realised he was suffering from.

Often, he'd disappeared for weeks at a time living rough in the woods,

seeking solitude and an escape from the world.

After a period of time and the realisation

that I wasn't getting any better, I was getting worse,

I was encouraged to go on to ESA,

which is Employment Support Allowance.

Employment and Support Allowance offers personalised support

and extra financial help to those suffering illness

or a mental condition, but who are still trying to work.

Finally, Rich was getting the right support

and started working as a part-time carpenter and surf instructor

with a view to saving up his wages to afford a surf trip to California.

It was a trip that was going to transform his life.

One of the days there,

there was a car boot sale and there was

a specific, um, a specific store and they were raising money

to help combat veterans through surfing

and they explained that what they do, they have these surf camps

and they get the amputees and the guys suffering from PTSD,

post-traumatic stress disorder, down the beach, and the families,

and I said, "I'm a surf instructor. Can I come and help out?"

Rich spent the weekend at surf camp helping the veterans in the water

and having a laugh, and he was amazed at the results,

both physically and mentally for these ex-soldiers.

It was at this point that Rich's mind was made up.

I actually decided that, "Hey, what a good idea.

"This needs to be done in the UK. What about our troops?"

If we could do this in the UK on the beaches in Cornwall

and put some smiles on faces, even for one day, what a fantastic idea. So that's what I've done.

For the next year, Rich set about getting his idea

up and running in the UK, calling it Surf Action.

He began helping veterans to visit him and learn to surf.

Getting them out of the house and doing something different.

Just sit down on the boards, guys. Whose is this one then?

The problem was Rich was funding everything out of his own wages

and was still fragile.

It took a year of preparation and it was quite hard.

There was a lot of stress and I actually started to disappear off the scene,

under the radar and back into the woods and living in the woods

more and more on a regular basis then.

I didn't actually think I could cope with it

and thought this is just too much

and although the idea's great, it's not going to work.

Rich needed help and a chance introduction was about to change everything.

Chris Hines is one of the founders

of the anti-pollution organisation Surfers Against Sewage.

He listened carefully to Rich's idea of helping veterans through surf

and believed Rich was on to a winner.

When Rich first said,

"This is the concept" I went, "That's brilliant."

I know that if I'm feeling stressed,

this is the best place for me to go.

So I went and saw someone from European convergence funding,

and they said go and see Carolyn Webster.

Carolyn Webster works for JobCentre Plus in Penzance.

Her role is to develop programmes

that help people back into the workplace.

As a former Armed Forces champion, she's specialised

in helping ex-service personnel find work once again.

Quite a lot of people leaving the Armed Forces

will go back into work, into other jobs straight away,

but for those who don't, they often experience additional barriers

in terms of readjusting back to civilian life,

and need help to move forward.

In Rich and the other veterans he was surfing with, Carolyn saw that help was needed,

and Surf Action sounded like a viable project.

I was quite keen from the outset.

Chris sold it very well,

so I wanted to see how I could help them.

Carolyn set about sourcing funding for Surf Action

that would make Rich's dream a sustainable reality.

She approached Cornwall Works,

an organisation that helps bring people, funding and companies together,

with the aim of getting people into jobs and keeping them there.

Cornwall Works has some pooled funds from a variety of sources

that helps us to test new ideas,

'so in Surf Action, I saw that potential to get a customer group

'who might not be thinking about getting back to work to take those first steps.'

And it wasn't long until Chris and Carolyn had come up trumps for such action.

I had a meeting with Carolyn in Truro, drove straight down,

said to Rich, "Good news, we've got £20,000, basically."

I was over the moon, because I knew this would buy equipment

and this would help us really start setting things up,

and this was the way forward.

I knew, as well, after a second meeting with Carolyn,

that there is a future here, and it is going to be sustainable.

And that was just amazing,

that's when things really started to go forward

and started to speed up, really positively for the future.

Rich now had a mentor in Chris, and a guardian angel in Carolyn.

With their help, advice and support, Surf Action started to make waves.

And became a registered charity.

I was really pleased with how they invested the first £10,000.

They got some basic equipment in that they needed to take delivery forward,

but also, Rich was able to come off benefits

and work part-time on Surf Action, and get a part-time job.

Surf Action is now two years old and is going from strength to strength.

With yet more funding secured by Carolyn,

Rich has been able to go full-time and take on his good friend Russ,

to help him with the administration side of the charity.

It isn't just surfing that's on offer to the veterans, though.

Every Friday, they meet informally at a cafe on the cliffs to talk, and make new friends.

Through friendship, camaraderie and support,

Rich and his colleagues aim to gain the trust of the veterans,

find out what's going on in their lives,

and make sure they are getting the right support and counselling to help them get back on their feet.

For everyone concerned with this project, the future looks good.

We've really had a return on our investment through Surf Action,

some of the veterans have gone back into work already,

others are volunteering, and what's emerging now is this model

where veterans that have been engaged and inspired through Surf Action

are being trained as mentors and supporters,

and they're helping to deliver other programmes for workless people, so you get that ripple effect.

What Rich has delivered is over and beyond

what I thought could be done, especially some of the work

with some of the veterans who've got missing limbs and physical injuries,

but also, really, what it does with people's minds as well.

And in all of this, no-one is happier than the man himself.

His dream finally realised,

thanks to the people who had faith in him right from the start.

All the way through, just like the dye through a stick of rock,

all the way through that stick of rock has been Carolyn,

helping us out all the way through, she's absolutely amazing.

Rich is a man who's already served his country once.

Now with the right help and support, he's able to do it again.

Seems to me he's well and truly back on his feet.

Whether those feet are on a surfboard or good old terra firma.

Now it's time to return to the scroungers.

HMRC fraud investigators are hot on the heels of Mr and Mrs Olaleye.

This couple arrived from Nigeria in the 1990s

and have been scrounging off our benefits system ever since.

Well, in July 2007,

we received a referral from the Department for Work and Pensions.

They told us that the Crown Prosecution Service

had just prosecuted a Mr Abiodun Olaleye

for obtaining a passport fraudulently, under a false identity.

That identity was a Mr Lateef Aremu.

And Abiodun had been using it to work and claim tax credit benefits fraudulently for years.

At the start of the investigation in 2007,

he was behind bars for this fraud.

As HMRC dig deeper, it turns out he and his wife are claiming child tax credits

and working tax credits, left, right and centre.

Once we concluded our checks,

this revealed that Mr and Mrs Olaleye, between them,

were claiming for a total of 19 children for tax credits.

And only three of those children actually belonged to their pair.

But they lacked in numbers of kids they made up for in houses.

HMRC also undertook enquiries to see what properties were owned by Mr and Mrs Olaleye.

We discovered that Mr and Mrs Olaleye

had purchased a right-to-buy property

at Eddystone Tower, from Lewisham Council.

They also bought a house, this time in the name of Mr Olaleye,

where Mrs Olaleye was supposedly living.

Both of these properties were bought by the couple in 2003.

From one of the properties,

Mr Olaleye was claiming benefits in his name

and in his false name of Lateef Aremu.

And the other house, Mrs Olaleye was claiming as well. But it gets worse.

These scroungers were using taxpayers' money to build a property empire.

We looked at the Olaleyes' bank accounts,

and from the activity on the bank accounts, we found that Mrs Olaleye

had purchased a flat at Rochfort House in London.

She'd used the name Oladipo.

We found Oladipo to be Mrs Olaleye's maiden name.

Another house, another name. Surely that's the end of it?

We also discovered a mortgage on a fourth property

in south-east London, in the name of Lateef Aremu.

The checks between Land Registry and the bank checks revealed that

Mr and Mrs Olaleye had four properties in total between them.

These houses were all news to HMRC.

Guess why it's such a big secret?

Because owning four houses would have a big impact on

the amount of benefits you're entitled to.

So for a scrounger, it's best to keep schtum.

Let's see if these two held their nerve

when HMRC wanted a word about all these claims.

In the interview under caution,

both Mr and Mrs Olaleye were asked about the details of their claims.

Mr Olaleye made a no-comment interview throughout,

other than he did confirm that he had made a claim in his own name,

and also made a claim in the name of Lateef Aremu.

Well, Abiodun may say "no comment" to a lot of the questions,

but by admitting he's been using the false identity of Lateef,

he let the investigators know they are on the right track.

It seems his wife is getting similar pangs of guilt.

Mrs Olaleye presented us with a pre-prepared statement

to say that she had made an incorrect claim

and that she would pay back the money she was not entitled to.

Well, that's good to hear.

But it's a bit late in the day now you've been caught

with your hand in the cookie claim jar.

Despite this pair holding up their hands to some of this fraud,

the investigators need to prove it all.

After the interviews, the investigators pull out their trump card.

HMRC also sent the claim forms off

in respect of Mr and Mrs Olaleye's handwriting comparison.

We wanted to prove that the signatures on the documents

actually related to Mr and Mrs Olaleye,

and they came back tested positive.

They were in fact the false claims for these 19 children.

The claim forms submitted by Lateef Aremu also matched Mr Olaleye's handwriting,

proving that they were indeed one and the same person.

With the evidence in place needed to send the scroungers down,

the investigators now have an idea just how much these two have conned out of me and you,

yes, the taxpayers.

In total, Mr and Mrs Olaleye stole from HMRC £147,024.

You what? I've heard enough. Get them to court!

In 2010, both appeared in front of a judge at Basildon Crown Court.

Mr and Mrs Olaleye were charged with fraudulently claiming

child tax credits, and acquiring criminal property.

They both pleaded guilty at Basildon Crown Court.

I should think so too.

Abiodun is sentenced to 20 months in jail.

His wife, Olanrewaju, is given a six-month sentence,

suspended for 18 months, and 250 hours of community service.

Ironically, it's only because of her real children that did actually exist

that she escaped a spell behind bars.

In summing up, the judge said that he had suspended Mrs Olaleye's sentence

out of an act of mercy for her children.

The three of them, that is.

This is one of the largest tax credit frauds of its type.

Although our department does deal with many different types of tax evasion cases,

only some of the organised crime group cases may pose more severe threat to HMRC.

There are many ways to make an honest living,

and inventing children so you can claim benefits is not one of them.

Child tax credits are there for the needy, not the greedy.

And if you're going to fiddle the system, fraud investigators will track you down.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd