Lounnas/Family Fund/Jones Saints and Scroungers

In this country, the money we pay as taxes goes to provide

essential services that we rely upon every day.

It's also there to give us a safety net

if things go wrong or life takes an unexpected turn.

This help comes in the shape of vital support that improves lives.

Without the benefits, I would have had to take her out of nursery.

Then there are people who see that money as something they deserve, even when they don't.

Those who cheat the system tend to get their comeuppance.

Clearly, she was able to make significant profit.

This is a world of Saints And Scroungers.

Saints And Scroungers highlights the people using and abusing our benefit system.

On one hand, you have the genuine, on the other, fakers and fraudsters.

While investigators across the UK battle to bring the bogus claimants to justice,

the saints try their hardest to get people the help that they desperately need.

Coming up on today's show -

a fraudster operating across two London boroughs using different identities...

He defrauded London Borough of Ealing and Hammersmith and Fulham

of £174,000 in housing benefit claims.

..a scrounger who has been claiming sickness benefits while living the high life...

They were computers with photographic evidence

showing details of holidays in Indonesia and the Maldives.

..and we meet a grandmother struggling to bring up her troubled grandchild

who finds help she didn't know existed.

I'm a very proud woman. A very proud woman.

I don't like asking for help, really.

Hello, I'm Matt Allwright, I'm a TV presenter.

Luckily for you, there's only one of me. Imagine if there wasn't.

Imagine if there were more of me with different names

but the same face, running around the country.

It's a scary thought.

Hello.

Hola!

Funnily enough, that is exactly what some people do to commit benefit fraud.

They create false identities

and then use those aliases to claim more benefits than they deserve.

Go on, get lost!

Accept no substitute.

Meet Rachid Walid, a 41-year-old French national who worked

part-time as a cleaner in a bakery and lived in a rented flat in Acton.

His wages were so low that Ealing Council paid for his housing costs and his council tax.

In total, he received nearly £26,000 in benefits over a 22-month period.

Everything appeared to be above board until the fraud unit at Ealing Council got a tip-off

that some foreign nationals might be using fake IDs.

Manager Sudhi Pathak was in charge of the case.

Islington provided us with some intelligence,

specifically on the use of fake passports to claim benefits.

There were a batch of passports that had been stolen from France,

either from a variety of people

or an actual batch from the French authorities themselves.

Those were the fake passports in circulation.

With the prospect of loads of dodgy French passports floating around,

Sudhi immediately searched the benefits database in Ealing

to flush out any suspicious French claimants.

We had a fraud profile, broadly they were of Algerian nationality,

single males,

in the main, working a low number of hours, part-time hours,

which made them eligible to apply for housing benefit.

That was a fraud profile that we were after.

Yep, the profile fitted our part-time cleaner Rachid well.

Well, almost.

He was a French Algerian but still pinged up on investigators' suspect list.

Rachid Walid came to our attention

and he had provided a number of documents to us that fitted

our profile of a single male living in a particular postcode at the time.

Initially, when his claim went through he had to submit his identification,

he submitted his passport.

He also had to provide proof of employment

and he'd provided a letter from an employer and payslips

and some timesheets to show the hours that he had worked.

Walid had given council officials all of the right paperwork

but it needed to be checked.

C'est incroyable! It's unbelievable in French!

A series of hooky French passports being used to make fraudulent benefit claims.

Time for Ealing Council to channel their energies into investigating.

Sudhi's fraud team now prioritise their investigation

into the use of fraudulent French passports and they call it "Operation Rapport".

The lead officer on the team, who has asked for his identity

to remain anonymous, due to the nature of his job

had responsibility for investigating Mr Walid amongst others.

His first job was to confirm whether the passport Walid had used in his claim was genuine.

The French Embassy or the UK BA will normally tell you

whether the passport is counterfeit,

i.e. not on their database at all or if it's been substituted photograph.

So it's a real person but the passport has been stolen

and the photo replaced with that person's identity.

Now, as EU nationals, French people are perfectly entitled

to claim benefits when they reside in the UK.

But if Walid was, in fact, Algerian, he wouldn't be entitled to anything.

Had he been using a fake passport to get access to benefits?

Rachid Walid was confirmed as being a counterfeit passport.

They had no record of that individual on the database from the French Embassy.

He wasn't French, he was a fake.

The fraud team was now on the trail of a suspected benefit cheat

and the lead investigators started looking at all of the documents

that Walid had provided to support his claim.

Checks were conducted with the employer he'd declared

initially in his claim for benefits, which is the Baker's Oven.

It became apparent that the proof provided for Baker's Oven was fake.

He'd never worked for them,

they had never employed anyone by the name of Rachid Walid.

He'd made up everything about his employer.

He never worked for Baker's Oven at all,

he just forged references, timesheets

and wage slips to qualify for benefits.

So, who was this mysterious benefit claimant?

He was using a fake passport

and stolen and false identity to claim benefits

and the employer he claimed to be working for had never heard of him.

It was time for the fraud team to get to the bottom of things.

Rachid was now a prime suspect in Operation Rapport.

The fraud team decided to pay him an early-morning visit

to find out what he had to say for himself.

After we'd gathered enough evidence, my investigators

and the police raided a property on this road.

We were intending to break into the property if necessary

in order to attempt to recover the fake passport, if possible.

It was approximately 6.50 in the morning,

we alerted the occupant just by knocking, who then opened the door.

It was then clear from the person who opened the door

that they resembled the person who was on the photo

used in the fake passport.

Bingo!

The investigating team had got their man, or at least they thought they had.

We asked if we could speak to Rachid Walid and he stated that no, he didn't know him.

He gave his name as Mr Brahim Lounnas.

So, he didn't know Walid but was living in a house registered under that name.

That doesn't sound right.

The officers had not come across the name Lounnas before

so they decided to make a quick call to find out if the story from Walid was valid.

We phoned the number that was provided on the claim form for Rachid Walid

and the phone started ringing in the house.

So, let's get this straight.

The bloke lived in Walid's house, had Walid's mobile phone and was a dead ringer for him

but was insisting he'd never met the man. Clearly, he's having a laugh.

The investigators now knew that Lounnas or Walid or whatever he was calling himself,

was not being honest with them.

But he still wasn't going to make their job easy.

Mr Lounnas remained silent pretty much throughout the time we were in the property.

A full search was conducted in which various documents were seized,

including a number of passport photos of the individual.

The same photos that were used by...as Rachid Walid in the photo on his passport.

A number of benefit documents relating to the Rachid Walid at Ealing.

A passport and benefit papers all in the name of Walid.

Evidence just doesn't get much better than that.

It was looking like an open and shut case until the officers turned up with even more ID

with exactly the same picture on it.

We found an ID for Brahim Lounnas, an Algerian ID.

An Algerian identity card with his photo attached.

So, who was this guy? Lounnas or Walid?

Whoever he was, he'd potentially stolen nearly £26,000 from Ealing Council

and Sudhi's team had now put together the evidence to prove it.

Back of the net.

The team finally had the man but they were starting to realise

that the scale of this man's fraud

was much bigger than they'd ever suspected.

When the property was raided,

we found a number of bank statements, details of mobile phones

but, more interestingly, documents that showed a number of other fake IDs.

For now, it's farewell to the fraudsters

and hello to the people we call saints.

Those in our society that help others in genuine need

but who are sometimes too proud or don't even know how to claim what is rightfully theirs.

Family life for most of us is the thing that brings and binds us together,

and in many cases, makes us who we are.

But when tragedy strikes at the heart of a family,

it can change your life in a way you never thought possible.

41-year-old Jackie Somerford was a young grandmother who enjoyed an active social life.

But her carefree lifestyle came to an abrupt end in 1999

when Bonnie, her teenage daughter, found out she was having Jackie's second grandchild.

Bonnie had a drugs problem and was in an unstable relationship.

She didn't think she could cope with having a baby and neither did Social Services.

I did ask her one day, "Are you pregnant?" She said no.

And then a few weeks after, I asked her again, I said, "Are you pregnant?"

She said yeah...cos she was too far gone to have an abortion.

And the day of the scan, she found out what she was having as well

and then she came back from the hospital and asked me if I would take the baby on.

When Bonnie asked her mother for help with her unborn child,

Jackie really didn't feel she had any choice.

I thought, I'd have to bring this child up

because I couldn't see him going in care.

I knew she wasn't in a position, with the partner that she was with, to bring this child up.

In July 2001, Roger was born.

Jackie was hopeful that Bonnie's chaotic lifestyle would change

and she would grow into the mother she knew her daughter could be.

But it was soon clear that wasn't going to happen any time soon.

-Hello, how are you doing, Jackie?

-Hello.

-Good to see you.

-Come in.

-Thank you.

Are you able to talk to Bonnie about this and make sense and talk about responsibilities?

How do those conversations work?

Bonnie's attitude was, once he was born, she'd come out that hospital

and Roger was going to me, and that was it.

Suddenly, you have got a young child to look after, a baby.

But you have got your own life.

How did things change for you, practically?

-I had to give up work.

-How does that work out financially for you?

It didn't at the time because I had to go on state benefit.

Not something you would have chosen to do?

No, not at all. I was happy working.

I was just getting my life together, working, I was happy.

All of a sudden, I had to give it all up.

-Suddenly, this bombshell.

-This little boy's appeared

and I had to give quite a lot of things up.

Jackie wanted to provide Roger with a secure and stable upbringing

so she applied for and was given custody of him by the family court.

She was determined to give her grandson the same positive start in life

that her own three children had,

but when Roger became a toddler, Jackie realised this was going to be difficult.

At the age of three, I noticed the behaviour with him.

I would go up to the nursery to pick him up

and he would have had an outburst where he would trash the whole playgroup.

That's books, toys. He would trash about twice, three times a week.

They got fed up with cleaning it up, so what we used to have to do,

if he trashed it, we'd have to go up and clean up.

I just couldn't make out why he was doing it.

I used to ask the nursery assistant, "Has something gone on here,

"has he fallen out with a friend or something?"

They couldn't pinpoint what was going on.

As he's getting older, though,

when was the point when you noticed that actually Roger might have

erm...certain areas of his life

where it's not quite working out the same as your other three kids?

He went to Year 1 and he started to really be bad.

Erm, wouldn't do any work, he would disrupt the class.

-Still, clearly, things are wrong.

-Yes.

What were you thinking at this point? "How did I get into this situation?"

Yes, I did. That's how it was. "Why is it happening to me?"

After Roger's disruptions at school, he was assessed by a doctor

and diagnosed with having emotional social behaviour.

He was taken out of mainstream school and placed in a special needs school.

Jackie was struggling to cope with Roger's violent outbursts

and just when she thought things couldn't get any worse, Bonnie disappeared.

I got a phone call from a friend of hers

to say that she had been missing a week.

So, I told that friend to phone the police and report her missing.

In that week, she would either had got in contact with me or this friend. But she hadn't.

No-one had seen nothing of her and that wasn't like Bonnie.

Bonnie was placed on the missing person's list

and when Jackie heard from the police, nothing could have prepared her for the news

that she got about her daughter.

I received a phone call from the police

asking to come over

and, erm, to see me.

They came over and they introduced themselves to me as homicide.

And I just looked at them and they said, "Murder squad."

I said, "I know who you are."

At that time, Bonnie was a very serious, serious, missing person.

I told them she was dead and they asked me how do I know?

I said because the week she was missing,

I had a gut feeling that something was wrong but I couldn't tell you...

to this day, I still can't tell anyone -

that gut feeling was horrible.

Tragically, her gut feeling was spot-on.

The police confirmed Bonnie had been killed.

It was a nightmare for Jackie

but even as she was grieving for Bonnie,

she had to stay strong for her grandson, who was just six years old at the time.

There was Roger that I had to think of.

I had to try and shield him but when he found out about his mum,

that did have a big impact on his behaviour again.

Jackie wanted to help Roger as much as possible.

It was tough for her as a single gran on benefits just to get basic things like clothes.

He was growing fast, was larger than other kids his age.

His growth spurt meant Jackie was struggling to cope and keep him in new clothes.

Have you read that one?

She was at a loss as how to provide more for him

until she heard about an organisation which might be able to help.

I heard about Family Fund through another parent at school, who is now a friend of mine.

She told me what she got for her son off them.

She said to me, "You want to try."

I always thought Family Fund was for cancer victims,

not children with disabilities, like with behavioural problems.

The fund distributes money on behalf of the government to children with disabilities

for things that will improve their lives for which they can't afford.

It takes as much as three times more to raise a child with a disability

than without a disability.

So there are those increased costs for families to find.

Even very basic things like providing new clothes and shoes

can be an added strain on families' finances.

It sounded like just the kind of help Jackie had been dreaming of for Roger.

She'd been finding caring for him really hard work

both in terms of his outbursts and trying to provide basic things for him.

So she applied to the charity for help.

But would Roger's diagnosis of emotional social behaviour

be considered a specific enough condition to warrant that help?

'We have a clear set of guidelines.'

The grants that people apply for

have to be very clearly related to the child's disability.

At last count 5.9 million UK residents of working age

were claiming benefits, whether it's because of their disability

to bridge the gap while they're out of work

or to top up their income to make a living wage.

Now, for the majority, the welfare system provides a crucial safety net

that they can rely upon in their hour of need.

But for all those innocent benefit claimants out there,

there will be a few pocketing money which isn't rightfully theirs.

Whether they've forgotten to declare a change in their circumstances

or deliberately misled the authorities,

a billion pounds a year is lost to benefit fraud.

Thankfully, teams of investigators all over the country

are trawling data on computers, studying claim forms

or out there on the streets determined to catch the cheats red-handed.

Today's cheat - the scuba-diving scammer.

A painful back condition can be debilitating and depressing

when it leaves you unable to fulfil even the most simple of tasks.

It can ruin your basic quality of life

and make very hard work for those who are supporting you.

The benefit system is designed to help people

who happen to find themselves struggling with illness,

people like Rose Jones who claimed she had a painful

degenerative spinal condition after suffering a stroke.

Rose Jones first claimed incapacity benefit in June 1994

because she had a back condition that was such that she was unable to work.

Later she also claimed disability living allowance.

In September 2008, she submitted another self-assessed disability living allowance claim

saying that her condition had deteriorated.

She said she had trouble walking, getting up and down the stairs,

she had trouble at night when her back locked up

and she required assistance. She had trouble washing.

She had trouble cooking

and she even said she was unable to open a bottle of wine.

Her life sounds like a complete nightmare.

Fortunately she could rely on the benefits to help her out

and because she was assessed as requiring the highest rate of assistance,

her husband, Reg, got a carers allowance as well.

The Department for Work and Pensions had no reason to suspect

there was anything wrong with Rose's claim until they got a tip-off

she was a bit more mobile than she was letting on.

It was in November 2009 that we received an anonymous allegation

that Rose's claim may not be correct.

In this instance the suggestion was that Rose was working.

Working with a back like hers?

She can't even walk up the stairs or open a bottle of Chateau le Cheat

let alone get out and about.

Rose had been claiming benefits for over 15 years

so if she'd been working on the sly, how long had this been going on?

Using access to systems that were available to the department,

we checked her National Insurance records and we found information

to show that, yes, she was receiving an income from an employer.

That sounds serious.

Oh, yes, and the investigators thought so too.

Rose's story of being unable to do the most basic things just didn't ring true

and the Department for Work and Pensions was on the case.

Having established that Rose was in receipt of income

from an employer, what we wanted to assure ourselves then

was that that income was in respect of paid work.

Our inquiries established that Rose had started work in 1996

whilst claiming her benefits as a care worker in a care home.

Later in 2001,

she started work as a caretaker in London working 35 hours a week.

It was at this time that she also took on an additional job

as a concierge for a further 40 hours a week.

So, at one stage, she was working up to 75 hours a week.

Those are some pretty long shifts.

Her back must be in better shape than mine

if she's doing those kind of hours.

Oh, dear. It sounds like it's all about to unravel.

And it did when the Department for Work and Pensions fraud team

decided to take the investigation to the next level

and raid Rose's home with the police.

Rose was not at the address but we were able to search the address

and it was there that we found scuba-diving equipment

and skiing equipment.

Of the other evidence that we found at the address,

there were computers with photographic evidence

showing details of holidays in Indonesia and the Maldives.

Rose had been doing, what can only be described as, adrenaline sports

and jetting off around the world at the taxpayers' expense.

Her back was obviously in quite good shape.

But seeing holiday snaps was one thing,

proving she was defrauding the benefit system is quite another.

During the search, we seized information that showed us later

when we put it together as a timeline,

that there was a fortnight period in August 1994

where Rose signed her initial claim to disability living allowance,

went away on holiday and passed the basic diving qualification.

There was also a diving watch that later provided evidence to show

the details of where Rose had been diving and when

over the whole period of her claim to benefit.

In court, Rose found it, well, a bit difficult to explain

why she'd been claiming benefits while working and going on exotic holidays.

The couple also found it tricky to justify why Reg was getting paid

for taking care of Rose when she was as clearly as fit as a fiddle.

After a two-week trial at the crown court,

they were found guilty of all charges.

Reg was sentenced to 18 months in prison

and Rose was sentenced to 15 months.

The total amount of incapacity, disability and carers benefits

fraudulently claimed by the couple was just over £138,000.

If you want expensive holidays and hobbies,

you've got to be able to afford them.

This is one group of Joneses that I wouldn't suggest you keep up with.

It's time to leave the devious world of the scrounger

and return to those who are genuinely in need.

Jackie Somerford has been bringing up her grandson Roger

since he was a baby after her daughter Bonnie

was considered too unfit to care for him.

Living on benefits, she's been finding it tough to afford

basic things for him like clothes.

Roger was diagnosed with having emotional social behaviour aged five.

When him mum Bonnie died, his behaviour got really bad.

Lucy Cope is a close family friend

and saw first-hand how his behaviour changed after the tragedy.

He became obviously distressed, first and foremost.

Angry, volatile.

There's no way to begin to imagine

what was going through his mind at that time and at that stage.

Last summer, the amount of tears...

..Jackie shed was like a river.

She didn't know which way to turn or where to go. It was heartbreaking.

Heartbreaking.

I brought some information around.

Desperate to help Roger get back on track

Jackie approached a government fund that gives grants to children with disabilities.

Roger was growing out of his clothes fast so she needed help,

she also wanted to get him a computer

so he could catch up at school and focus on his homework,

something he often failed to do at home.

Jackie applied to the fund earlier this year

and she needed some help with some basic items like clothing

and was looking for help with a computer.

We prioritise who we do visit.

We have a number of groups of people that we prioritise.

So, grandparents is one of those groups

because we feel they are particularly isolated,

that they don't have access to information.

So those are some of the things that we help with.

We looked at her application form and felt that Jackie needed a visit

by one of our advisers who would go into her home,

talk about her application.

In 2011, the charity handed out grants to over a thousand grandparents

who were bringing up their grandchildren.

In recent years, they've seen an upsurge in applications

from grandmothers like Jackie.

The big question was,

would Roger be one of the lucky beneficiaries in 2012?

We have a clear set of guidelines for assessing disabled

and seriously ill children at visits.

Those guidelines were used by the adviser at the visit

to look at Roger's needs on a number of levels.

So, we've looked at the fact Roger attends a special school,

the fact he needs a huge amount of supervision

in terms of his personal care, in washing and dressing and eating.

Jackie was hoping that her request for a computer for Roger

to help him with his education would be successful.

I went to visit Jackie in South London to find out what's happened.

Two weeks after me visit, I got a phone call from them

to say that I'd been accepted...

..and Roger had got his computer...

..which I think's good because it'll help him

learn a little bit more and help him with homework.

Do you think it's something that'll make a big difference?

Yeah, a very big difference to him.

Would it have been outside your budget otherwise?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I wouldn't have been able to afford it myself.

How does it make you feel?

You've been through such an incredible story

and at the end of this I'd imagine there's part of you

that just feels that you're kind of up against it,

you're in it by yourself and you don't want to accept help,

-does that make sense?

-Yeah.

-I mean...

-I'm a very proud woman.

A very proud woman. I don't like asking for help really.

I'd rather save if I have to.

But if there's people out there to help you,

well, go for it.

Tell me about Roger now. Where's he at?

How is he these days? Because he's had some problems.

Yeah, he's had problems.

At his new school, he's doing really well

which we thought, again, another change.

From primary school to secondary is a big change.

We really thought we was going to have a lot of problems.

But, no, he's really settled down and knuckled in.

The small grant provided by the charity has been instrumental

in helping Roger move on with his life.

And for fund manager Clare Kassa it's been a successful case of

helping a particular type of family unit that all too often misses out.

Let's just look at Jackie and Roger.

He's not had the best time at schools in the past.

This is a way, presumably, he can educate himself a little bit.

It means he can have access to those tools and go online

and improve his ability and skills

and help him to reach his potential academically.

Jackie seemed not to really know about Family Fund

and she didn't really feel that she was due anything from you.

Is that something you encounter quite a lot?

We do encounter it quite a lot with grandparents.

Lots of grandparents don't know that the Family Fund exists

because they're not linked into the same support networks

that other parents are.

And grandparents looking after their grandchildren,

is that a special area, do you think, that sometimes gets overlooked?

It certainly is.

Jackie's story is incredible, it really is,

I've never heard anything quite like it.

You're able to make a judgment there and individually say, "Look,

"this is someone who needs just a bit of help and we can give that."

Yeah. Families like Jackie and Roger

have immense other challenges to face

because of the child's disability and their access to technology

and to recreation is much more limited than for other families.

So we provide those things to give people the choices

that actually lots of other families have as a right.

These families don't have those opportunities.

Jackie's been through some dark times with Roger

but this government-funded organisation has helped

to make the future look a lot brighter.

Something good has happened out of this with Family Fund.

Because they've helped my family.

If they can help my family, they can help other families as well

and make life better for a lot of people.

Jackie's having to steer her family through a series of experiences

which for most of us are unimaginable

and she's helping her grandson to heal the most painful of scars.

The help she's receiving may seem small

but when you're trying to be strong sometimes knowing that there's someone

looking out for you can make a huge difference.

OK, everyone, sit up straight, it's scrounger time.

The fraud team at Ealing Council have been taking part

in a London-wide investigation into fake French passports being used to claim benefits.

The team discovered that a claimant called Rachid Walid had been

using a false passport to get housing benefit.

But when they raided his address, despite looking like Walid,

he claimed he was someone else.

Brahim Lounnas -

his name came to our attention

when we visited the property

initially looking for Rashid.

The door was opened by a gentleman who introduced himself as Brahim Lounnas

who looked very similar or identical to the photograph of Rachid Walid.

Brahim Lounnas was a new name to me.

It wasn't someone... It wasn't a name that we were investigating

or that we were connected with.

So, um...

It was new to us but the decision was taken because of the look

and the resemblance,

that we wanted to go inside and look.

And it was a good job that the team did go decide to search his house

because not only did they find fake documents

relating to Walid, they found other incriminating evidence.

As the search continued and the different IDs were being found,

bank cards, chequebooks, bank statements

in the names of Abdeslem Farahi,

and Kerrime Messikh

and benefit documents for Hammersmith and Fulham

relating to a Nouredine Messikh.

This wasn't just a case of one man and his alter ego.

This man seems to have a different identity

for every day of the working week.

The team had uncovered a treasure trove of other fake IDs

but they still had to find out who was behind the operation.

The three other fake IDs in the names of Abdeslem Farahi

and Kerrime Messikh and Nouredine Messikh were being used

to make benefit claims from neighbouring Hammersmith and Fulham Council.

Benefit claims that matched identically the type of claims

Lounnas had been making in the name Rachid Walid.

The team in Ealing immediately contacted their colleagues

in Hammersmith and Fulham about what they'd found.

The investigation became a joint investigation

between ourselves in Ealing and Hammersmith and Fulham Council.

They had...

..three different claims in three different IDs mentioning

Abdeslem Farahi, Nouredine Messikh and Kerrime Messikh

at different addresses going back over various time frames.

Quite a large overpayment of benefit had been made

from Hammersmith and Fulham.

During the search of the house, the investigators found

different folders with the names of the three bogus claimants,

Abdeslem Farahi, Kerrime Messikh and Nouredine Messikh

and fake documents relating to their claims

from Hammersmith and Fulham Council.

They started looking into the other three claims.

All of them worked short, part-time hours

in order to qualify for benefits.

All were doing the same kind of job

and all their IDs had been stolen, according to the French Embassy.

Some people have skeletons in their closet,

this guy had whole identities in his cupboard.

Passports, bank cards and statements, correspondence

and all in different names.

When the fraud team analysed the employment documents relating to the benefit claims,

they discovered the names of employers had been made up.

The whole thing was a pack of lies.

We passed on all our findings to Hammersmith and Fulham

and gave them that information

and unfortunately they'd been defrauded as well.

He defrauded the London borough of Ealing and Hammersmith and Fulham

of £174,000 in housing benefit claims.

Wow! £174,000.

Serious money.

£26,000 had been stolen from Ealing Council

and £148,000 from Hammersmith and Fulham.

The team knew the fraudster had rented three properties in Fulham

and one in Ealing in order to commit the fraud

but what was he doing with all of them?

The rents were being paid in the property in Acton, in Cotton Avenue,

but we don't know if he was residing in the Acton property

at that stage or in any of the Hammersmith and Fulham properties.

It seems likely that there may have been, in order to obtain

financial gain, there may have been subletting taking place

in some or all of the Hammersmith and Fulham properties.

So he was getting the properties paid for by the taxpayer

and then renting them out again.

For over five years, the fraudster had been a landlord at our expense.

The estate agents that managed the properties

where the bogus claimants were registered had to be contacted

and they turned out to be very helpful.

I went along to Churchill's letting agents and showed them

a photo of Brahim Lounnas,

the person we had identified at the address who had given that name.

They confirmed that the photo of Brahim Lounnas

was the same of that for Rachid Walid

who had taken out a tenancy at that address in Cotton Avenue.

Result!

An independent eye witness that could confirm

Lounnas had been posing as Walid.

When the team interviewed the other letting agencies

about the other aliases, Nouredine, Kerrime and Abdeslem,

they all confirmed they'd been dealing with Lounnas as well.

Once we'd carried out the raid and carried out further checks,

we came to the conclusion we'd found out that the

true identity of this person was Lounnas

and all of the other IDs were false IDs.

Sudhi had to piece the complicated case together

and his prime suspect wasn't being very helpful.

After Brahim Lounnas was arrested, he was brought in for questioning

and interviewed under caution.

He did identify himself as Brahim Lounnas

but he refused to comment and didn't answer any of our questions.

He might have been tight-lipped in the interview room

but when he was faced with a judge, somehow he found his voice.

In January 2012, Lounnas appeared before Isleworth Crown Court

and pleaded guilty to 13 charges.

He was sentenced to serve three years in prison.

It was a good result for Ealing fraud team

and it's a case the council has certainly learned some lessons from.

In the aftermath of the Lounnas case, we decided to take some proactive action.

What we've introduced is a document ID checker.

That allows us to scan passports and to scan driving licences.

As soon as something fake is discovered, we know what's happening

and we can contact UKBA and do an investigation ourselves.

Hopefully nothing like this will happen again.

So, fraudsters, beware.

You may be good with coming up with new names, different haircuts

and different faces but when you end up in jail,

the identity you'll be using will be the real one.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd