Episode 1 Britain on the Fiddle

This programme contains some strong language

Fraud is the national problem none of us can afford.

A staggering ?20bn stolen last year from the state -

that's more than all of next year's welfare cuts.

I'm Richard Bilton. In this series, I'm on the front line

with the investigators fighting fraud.

This is a 65-inch.

That's about how tall I am.

Tonight, the people getting financial support from the state

before spending thousands doing up their property.

Why don't you BLEEP off?

CHEERING

The woman who won almost ?100,000 on a game show,

but carried on claiming.

It's not fair what you're doing.

And the man doing house clearances

while claiming disability payments in two names.

Hold it there. Put it down.

I've got the heavy one.

HE MUTTERS INCOHERENTY

Last year, fraudsters stole vast amounts of cash

from councils already under pressure.

But some councils have found a new way to fight back.

When I start going through people's bank statements,

it is like sifting for gold. It makes you wonder about everybody's

secret life and what people are doing behind closed doors.

Zoe Neale's job is to get the stolen money back.

She's Croydon Council's first financial investigator.

When fraudsters are convicted, she starts hunting for the cash.

I work under the Proceeds of Crime Act, so I'm looking for

any unidentified cash, a property or a car or some jewellery.

Through the courts, fraudsters can be forced to hand money back.

That's important given how much is being stolen -

?2.5 million from Croydon alone last year.

52 grand for a watch.

SHE LAUGHS

But it's not easy.

These are the papers for Zoe's first ever case -

it's a complicated one.

So that, that's a lot of paperwork. It is.

It's one of the biggest cases any council has tackled.

From an investigator's point of view it's everything.

You name it, it's in this case somewhere.

It's the case of Ovo Nelson Mayomi.

He came here from Nigeria using a false passport

and married a British citizen, Juliet Ubiribo.

All that I have I give to you. All that I have I give to you.

But the happy couple kept their wedding a secret from the council.

For years, Juliet Ubiribo claimed benefits as a single mum,

and Ovo Mayomi used a fake ID to pose as her landlord.

How much money then did they falsely claim,

if you lump everything together?

Their benefit overpayment was about ?43,000. Wow.

He was sentenced to 30 months in prison and she was sentenced

to 12 months in prison, but it's been suspended.

Having spent so much time on this case,

what do you think about these two?

Well, they are liars and they're cheats,

and they've stolen from the taxpayer.

Mayomi is out of jail, but Zoe is after him.

She wants the stolen cash back.

To get the ?43,000,

Zoe has spent two years checking out what the couple own.

And they've got expensive tastes.

The watch that Juliet Ubiribo had,

it'll be similar to those sorts of watches.

Zoe is in London's West End to value a Rolex watch

found at the couple's house.

It's steel and gold with ten diamonds around it.

The watch at the back, it's new, that's worth ?8,400.

She's already got a legal order to stop the couple selling the watch.

Now she wants to find out how much it might be worth to the council.

We've had it valued. It is a genuine Rolex and they have valued it.

Now the valuation, he said it's between ?12-to-1,400,

so the average is ?1,300.

I'm intrigued because this was a person who was claiming benefits

on the basis that she was a single parent struggling to make ends meet,

and yet she bought a watch, and not just a watch, but a Rolex watch.

The Rolex is just the start.

She needs to find a lot more

if she's to get back all the cash stolen from the council.

Further north is another council fed up with its fraud bill.

This is Stoke on Trent,

where one in four households are on benefits.

Most need them to survive, but a few are on the fiddle.

If I was at home, committing fraud or money laundering,

you know, it comes at a price.

Somebody might be watching you one day, or finding you and catching you.

Steve Prince is a surveillance expert.

What's it like being the watcher, though?

It's OK, because you don't know what you're going to see,

so I enjoy it from that angle.

When that moment happens that it's crucial to the case,

it can give you satisfaction when you see what you want to see.

Do you think you've got a natural feel for it?

I suppose so, yeah. Yeah. Naturally a nosy person as such,

or observational wise, you have to be that way.

But the other side is 10/12 years' experience as well, so...

It feels a bit like a big game, you know?

Is that how it feels from your side?

Yeah. It's a game. They are playing the game of taking money

that they're not entitled to,

and somebody has got to play the game of trying to catch them, really.

On this estate there are single mums who use benefits to make ends meet,

but there is one here who's attracted

the attention of the fraud team.

Caroline!

Caroline Banana got a place on the game show Deal or No Deal -

a chance to earn a lot of money.

She currently gets benefits - income support, housing benefit,

single person discount on her council tax -

and free school meals for her kids.

Now, seeing a mum from Stoke on the telly

caught Steve's boss's interest.

He was backing her. If she won, she wouldn't need benefits any more.

If that was your target, Caroline,

the offer to you now is ?35,000.

CHEERING

..but no deal.

She was offered ?35,000 by the banker,

and she's turned that down and elected to carry on.

She's got rid of the ten pence, so she knows she's in for a good win.

'If you were prepared to stop now,

'he would write you a cheque for ?95,000.'

SHE SCREAMS When Noel said ?95,000,

I was just ready for the question.

She won 95,000 - result - but then she cheated.

She banked the cash and kept on claiming.

I would love to win ?95,000,

but given the fact that she's claiming the full benefits...

The council is paying for her rent, paying her council tax...

It's quite distressing, really, when you think how many people

are really in a difficult situations, and here's someone who has

just walked away with a tax-free lump sum of ?95,000,

and yet feels it's OK to continue claiming all the benefits she can.

She should have been in explaining to us

that she's won this money and that she no longer wishes to claim.

So Steve has been called in.

It's a big part of the job, lots of hours doing nothing

for five minutes of action...usually.

He'll look into every area of Caroline Banana's life.

It might feel intrusive,

but the council say they need to know the score.

After her win, she's put ten grand in tax-free savings accounts,

bought a four-by-four and kept on claiming.

That's Caroline just going to her car...

at the end of the day.

And I'm just pulling away to get somewhere in front of her,

cos it would be better if she overtakes me

rather than me just follow her straight from work.

Steve suspects Caroline is involved in a number of fiddles.

Serious cheats often have different frauds on the go at the same time.

What's the trick to this not getting spotted?

It helps being in rush hour.

Most people can only go one way at this place.

She's looking in her rear view, so I'm just dropping it.

Oh, right. She is going that way.

I'd rather not take her down that way

cos you have to be careful that somebody might have spotted you.

With a bit of luck, I can maybe go that way

and just catch her coming out the other end of the road.

She could have pulled into a friend's house.

She could have nipped out of here by now

and gone down to the main road.

But with a bit of luck, I can let her in like that.

Here.

It's nice when you can let somebody in like that.

Can you believe your luck?

Experience, not luck.

So, if she thought we were following,

there's a good chance she's probably not now.

It's been a good day for Steve.

Now he'll check what she told the council when she first claimed.

If she lied, she'll be charged.

I'm in Knightsbridge.

I'm not used to coming to places like Knightsbridge.

I spend most of my time either at court,

in the office, or at police stations.

Zoe's on an unusual trip to the shops.

She's trying to get cash and assets back from a convicted fraudster,

and she needs to get a few prices.

We're here to visit Bang and Olufsen

because Mr Mayomi had bought equipment from them,

so we are here today to have a look at what he purchased.

Receipts found on Mayomi's computer

show he came here to buy televisions and music systems.

I have never seen anything like that.

I don't know what this is. I think it's a speaker of some sort.

(I don't know.)

I do feel really unsophisticated

because I don't know what half this stuff is.

Wow. How much is that?

In round figures, that's about ?10,000, thereabouts,

there or thereabouts.

Wow. ?10,000 for a television set. Yes.

And those speakers?

They are ?15,000 for a pair.

?15,000.

Mr Mayomi spent almost ?90,000 here.

This is a newer model than was purchased at the time.

This TV system, without the speakers, is approximately ?16,900.

So, how large a screen is this?

This is a 65-inch.

That's about how tall I am.

This is important.

High-value goods might help Zoe get back the money the couple stole,

but her search throws up an even bigger surprise.

Wow.

I've made enquiries in Nigeria and he, we believe,

owns a large house in Nigeria.

Wow! That is a large house, isn't it? Yeah.

I think it's got five bedrooms. Five bedrooms.

The building at the back, this will be either a "boys' quarters",

that will be for the servants, or else it may be a rental property.

It's thought Mayomi spent tens of thousands on this place.

Here is the photographs that the forensic examination

found on Mayomi's computer.

He spent three grand on chandeliers...

..a must-have for your mansion.

And how much is that worth?

I have valued that by comparing it with similar properties

found in the same estate. I valued that at over a million pounds. Wow.

She has uncovered other assets.

He owns land in Nigeria. He's got a fish farm in Nigeria.

His company paid for a watch that's valued at ?25,000.

Wow. So, this is a benefits cheat who has assets, you believe,

of more than a million pounds, 1.12. Yes. That's extraordinary.

But what does that feel like,

when it all comes together and you see this big figure?

I was very pleased and relieved.

A lot of my cases I find people have spent the money,

but this is something we can use in a confiscation order.

Mayomi is a bad lad.

As well as making tens of thousands in benefit fraud,

it's thought he's handled hundreds of thousands made through crime,

and Zoe is after that as well.

Although I'm a civilian, I have the powers of an accredited

financial investigator, so I can pursue enquiries under

the Proceeds of Crime Act and the Criminal Justice Act.

We're going to go ahead with the confiscation.

This will take time, so it's not going to happen overnight.

It's a gamble,

but Zoe thinks Mr Mayomi's assets have been gained illegally

and she is going after the lot.

In Stoke, Steve is examining the Deal or no Deal footage.

Caroline Banana is meant to be a single mum,

but here she looks very close to her ex.

I was ready to deal.

I knew this was it and I was just over the moon.

I just couldn't believe it.

And her Facebook profile isn't that of a single woman.

I've been checking that for months and months and months.

And what have you found?

The important thing we found were in the photo section.

And there they are together,

and they're making a joke about their surname Banana.

To me, it puts both of them on holiday.

It's not painting a picture of people who aren't getting on.

Even the jokes that are being made down here are kind of evidence

because people are presuming

that this is a normal situation. That's right.

They're just happy for them.

There's no surprise that that picture has been taken.

Nobody's thinking, "What's going on here?"

This guy, Mr Banana, that wasn't his name on Facebook, was it?

No, no. He's used the surname Tharbo a few times.

With knowing that surname,

I checked that one out and this is what came up.

Here's Michael Tharbo... Is that the two of them there?

Yeah. And it's actually still got "married to Caroline Banana" on.

There's a picture of them together.

Remember, these split up in 2008. Right.

He's had four years to remove that. And change his picture. Yeah.

Cos these two people, they're getting money

because they're not together as a couple. That's right.

But they're showing the world pictures of them on holiday.

He's getting money up in the Stockport area as a single chap

with children, and she's getting benefits and money

in Stoke as a single parent.

But seeing something on Facebook

and proving it in court are two very different things.

Steve needs evidence.

They are just leaving now. The missus is just coming out now.

That's Caroline just underneath that big window on that flat behind.

Living together fraud is very common -

it costs the country ?168m a year.

Steve is watching to see if Caroline

and her husband behave like a married couple.

That's Caroline just leaving now in the Dodge

to take the children to school.

But will Mr Banana follow?

There isn't long to wait.

So, it looks like it's the husband.

So, I can actually anticipate which way he's going and just see him.

You've seen how the house, the gates are shut.

Somebody's come out, shut the gates, got in the Jeep

and gone to work, allegedly.

You need to be have a certain amount of time where you've been doing

what we've just done, because...

we have had people in the past say that they stayed a week cos the kids

are ill, or he's come down cos he's the man that does the decorating.

What I'm doing now, I'm just going down this side road

and he'll be going down that main road in that Jeep...behind you.

He's there, actually.

If you just turn, you will catch him going past.

And that's classed as a good day. We've seen what we came for.

Somebody who shouldn't be living with her.

It's only quarter, 20 past eight in the morning.

He's come out in a suit, looking like what he's driving there,

so you will see that all over the country, won't you?

That sort of pattern for people who are living together.

I have been brought up on an estate with a family of nine.

Me mother and father had nine, and none of us would ever dream of

claiming benefits fraudulently.

And when people on the same estate

or other estates doing the same thing, it does get to you a bit.

People might see you and think you are a bit hard-hearted,

but you seem quite strong in your views. I am, yeah.

She should be paying her own rent, council tax, paying her own bills.

I'm pretty sure a lot of people on that estate

would pay their own bills if they came into that sort of luck.

I think, if you are claiming, it's got to be legit.

If you come into luck or get a job you should declare it,

and I don't mind seeing people punished for it.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is one of the most

sought-after addresses in the country.

There are council houses here worth ?1m...

..but that can attract the wrong kind of attention.

A fraudster who can get a subsidised place here

could make a fortune renting or selling.

There he goes.

I'm just looking at the vehicle reg...

so we can look him up on our system.

Marcin is part of the council's team that's out to stop them.

His job is to secretly film the fraudsters.

And now we've got this.

And in his short time with the fraud team

he's become a bit of an expert in surveillance.

We do stick out.

I used to do surveillance on my bicycle

and then we got a bright white wheelchair-converted vehicle.

We had that and that stuck out like a sore thumb,

so this is a huge step up.

What we really need to do is get blacked-out windows,

kind of like that, that would be good,

so I can just snoop on people and they can't see me.

This is one of the team's prime targets, William Anthony.

He said he lived with his mum in her council flat.

When she died, he wanted to take it over - fair enough.

Only when they checked him out, his story didn't add up.

The enquiries that we made into his name, William Anthony,

to another address in Richmond.

So, investigator Paul Churchill dug a little deeper.

There wasn't a William Anthony at that address,

but there was someone called William Stanley.

The mobile number for Stanley

and the mobile number for Anthony was the same telephone number.

So, it looks like he's got different names,

but it's the same guy using the same phone. That's what we thought.

To find out who they were dealing with, Paul made further inquiries.

The Passport Agency confirmed that there are two passports,

one in the name of William Anthony, one in the name of William Stanley.

So, this guy's got two passports. Two British passports,

and these are the pictures that the passport agency has sent to me.

That is clearly the same guy,

looks like on the same day even, doesn't it?

And they've confirmed that,

after checking the General Register Office,

they can find no trace of a William Stanley ever being born.

This is a very sought-after area, isn't it?

Yeah, it's quite a nice area. Where are we heading?

We are going to Clydesdale House, which is the address

Mr Anthony claimed that he was living at with his mum,

and the address he wanted to succeed the tenancy on.

So, this is Portobello Road, isn't it? Yeah.

And the flat is just around the corner. Yep.

What's the demand like around here for flats?

It would be high, yeah.

You get lots of subletting around here.

So, there is a big cash interest for him

to have that flat just around the corner. Oh, definitely, yeah.

The rent here would be around ?130 a week.

Privately, around here, it probably ?350 a week, probably more.

So that's why he was fighting for this flat? Yes.

We're just coming up to the flat now - it's on the right.

There's it is on the ground floor. Yeah.

The council has now turned down Anthony's application

to take over his mum's tenancy.

I have a hunch that he was going to buy under the Right-to-buy Scheme

because then he then gets like a ?75,000 discount,

and then he'll sell it again.

And make a load of cash.

So, all of this fraud that you think you've exposed,

it all stemmed, did it, from him just trying to get

his hands on that flat? Just trying to succeed his mum's tenancy.

But turning him down hasn't solved the council's problems -

it's just created another one.

Anthony's declared himself homeless and they have to help.

Watching and digging,

investigators spend their time stepping into other people's lives.

Steve's made an extraordinary discovery

about Mrs Banana's husband.

Wow. It's pretty grand, isn't it?

'Steve has found his family came here as political refugees.'

His dad was President of Zimbabwe before Mugabe took over.

Her husband's father was the President of Zimbabwe.

Yeah, yeah. He came over with the family

and one or two settled in Stoke.

So, what kind of life would he have had, do you know?

The family lived in the state house in Harare in Zimbabwe.

So unless Michael was living elsewhere

he was living quite well, wasn't he? A nice shower and bathroom.

Certainly different connections to Stoke on Trent anyway.

And you can do all this research this investigation just sat here

at your desk? You can do quite a lot from your desk, yeah,

because the internet is a big place.

'He's been looking at the Bananas' holiday snaps.'

Where's this picture then? Certainly not Stoke on Trent.

No, unless it was very warm.

'But this is serious.

'Steve has found that Mrs Banana spent seven weeks

'on holiday in Turkey while claiming benefits in Stoke.

'When she was there, she bought a villa.

'The plan was to rent it out as a business.'

Very, very recently, she gave us a new phone number.

Did you just whack it in Google?

Put it in Google and it popped up as Alanya Properties.

And if you look at the trading name,

it's registered at the address that she is living.

Can she run a company from a council house?

No, a council house is for living in, not working in. Right.

And it's a breach of tenancy.

So, from that you got this company. What does it do, this company?

There's properties in Turkey being to let and sold.

There's pictures of the properties and how much they are going for,

and what you can do when you are on holiday.

And that again is with her ex-partner, as she says.

With her ex-partner. He is on there as well as the partner

of the business, the UK team, basically.

More evidence that they are together? It seems to be, yeah.

'But Steve needs to back up what he finds on the internet

'with physical evidence.' One of the prettier places of Stoke on Trent.

And for him, the only way to do this

is to stay close to the Banana family.

Now the school is 100 yards to me left.

I don't need to be close to the school at all.

It's probably 100/200 yards up the back there.

This is full-on surveillance.

His boss has given permission to stake out the children's school

because the teachers say it's Michael,

not Caroline, who picks the kids up.

It isn't always a case of being on somebody's back

and filming them every five minutes of every day,

it's just painting a picture of what it looks like,

and what it would look like to people in the street.

Do they seem as a couple,

or a bloke appearing on the scene once a month for a day?

You're only trying to get to the bottom of it, the truth.

If it ain't happening then you will never prove it, will you?

If it isn't fact, you don't want to prove it.

You don't want people in trouble when they aren't doing anything.

Is it a bit bizarre that you are sitting in Stoke on Trent

doing surveillance on the son of the former president of Zimbabwe?

HE LAUGHS

Yeah, I suppose it is, isn't it? That's a bit strange, that one.

There's not too many sons of presidents that

live in Stoke, I suppose.

Unless they're presidents of working men's club's - quite a few of them.

LAUGHTER

Mr Banana doesn't show up, but the evidence is building.

Since she won ?95,000, not only has Caroline

continued to claim benefits, but Steve thinks she's working as well.

We've now got evidence of three periods of work she's done

when she was claiming benefit.

There is a note there on the second of March, 2011, where they've

called her regarding a job coming up and she's actually said

she can't do it cos she is filming Deal or No Deal.

And a crucial document has arrived.

It's taken us a few months to get the document from Endemol,

who make the game show, telling us that Caroline Banana actually won

the money and she was paid by cheque.

That's what we have been hoping for from day one.

That's the golden document, really.

The case against Caroline Banana is almost there.

It's early morning in North London

and Paul Churchill is on his way to a stake-out.

Oh, where are you?

He's meeting his boss.

I think I've missed most of the heavy rain.

It's like this all day. I reckon the weekend as well.

It's July. I can't believe it's going to be like this for three days.

They're here to watch William Anthony.

After being turned down for his mum's flat,

he declared himself homeless and he's on a waiting list.

On paper, his situation looks grim.

The council's paying for him to live in a hotel,

but Paul isn't sure he stays here.

So, we are going to see if he is actually staying there or not

because I've got reasons to believe that he probably isn't,

and that that's not his main home.

Right at the station, up, and then on the left.

They think William Anthony isn't homeless at all.

He's living a double life, and what he's trying to do is commit fraud.

We're not going to approach him today.

It's just to see if he's here.

Ideally, we would like to see where he is going.

This is the hotel...just there.

He actually lives across the road

because they've got the building across the road as well.

Shall we give it a knock? Yeah.

But as they leave, William Anthony, their target,

crosses the street and walks towards them.

He passes by and goes into the hotel.

We'll have to hide behind the wall or something.

Minutes later, Anthony comes back out.

He gets in the van, but doesn't drive off.

Andy and Paul have to walk past him again - it's not ideal.

He must be the white van, that white van we just went past.

We spotted that he's got into the white van at the end of the road.

My concern is that he is still sat in the car.

If he is surveillance-aware,

he may realise that we've got in this car and not moved.

And as we walked past once and come back,

I want to try and leave now so we can go past there.

We are going to move forward now. Drive off.

They drive around the block. When they return, he's gone.

He's gone.

Paul heads back to the office to carry on digging.

What were hoping to see is where he actually lives.

We saw him at the hotel this morning in Kilburn.

He was at the hotel? Saw him leave. We were just going into the hotel,

and he walked out and got into this white van and drove off.

Paul's interested in that van.

If it has a parking permit, who is it registered to?

We will send a fax over to Brent Council to see if they can

check out this number plate for us.

Probably give them details of the names that they've got as well

and see if they can find anything for him.

I'd expect a response within a week.

I mean, sometimes it can be within a day, so we will see.

But Paul doesn't want to wait, so he heads to Richmond.

This is the address where William Anthony's fake ID

William Stanley has claimed benefits in the past.

I'll let them go past me.

If you see the silver car over there,

that's another one of his cars.

And this is the other address

that he used to claim housing benefits under...

..in the name of William Stanley.

Saying that, yeah.

There's building work going on, yeah.

Oh, look at that white van. That's the white van.

That's the white van we saw this morning.

So we know that he's come from the hotel this morning

back to this address.

I think this is his main home.

Actually, we could go and have a quick look and see

if there is any parking permits on that van.

If he walks out and I bump into him again...

Walking over to the van...

..a packet of Swan Vestas in there.

No parking permits or anything.

I'm glad that we've seen the van now, I have to say,

because I didn't want to drive all this way

and there be nothing there at all.

I think this is where he lives.

Paul's case is building slowly, but he hasn't got enough to

charge William Anthony or stop him getting a free council flat.

In Stoke, the investigation is nearly complete.

In the case against Mrs Banana, who won 95 grand on a game show,

they've had another breakthrough - her bank records.

Overnight, we've had a reply back from Barclay's

saying there's three accounts in Caroline's name.

Now the figures of the opening balances of these

add up to the ?95,000.

So we're now... Where we were happy before that she had won money

on the game show, we can now show that that ?95,000

has been put into her name, into her bank account at Barclays.

A bank statement like this is pretty useful to us

because it can show what somebody's been up to, where they've been,

what they've been doing and who they've been doing it with, so...

So this morning, Steve will confront Caroline Banana.

He thinks he can prove she claimed benefits

for more than a year after winning on the show.

See you later.

This is a big day. Steve's worked on the case for months.

He's about to interview Mrs Banana,

but things have already started to change.

I delivered the letter to come in for interview last Tuesday, and since

then the vehicle that we have been seeing on the property every day

has suddenly disappeared.

It's not there, so you can make of that what you want.

And his Facebook page has been updated with "location: Stockport",

so you can see her reaction after

they are aware that they are being investigated.

If Caroline Banana can't come up with an explanation today,

she'll be charged.

Hi, I'm Steve Prince. I'm an investigator from

the Benefits Services Section from Stoke on Trent City Council.

The time by my watch is 3.42.

In the interview, Steve and a colleague

get Caroline to talk about her holiday.

'I went to Turkey last year for seven weeks with my whole family.

'It's quite a long holiday for somebody who is claiming

'an income-based benefit. It was...

'I couldn't afford to go on holiday for seven weeks.

'It was school holidays.'

What does she do when that's put to her?

This idea that you and the other interviewer

can't afford to go away for seven weeks? It's a difficult one.

She smiled and laughed a bit, but at the end of the day,

she could afford to go, couldn't she?

Is that a reasonable question? It is reasonable

cos people are on income support cos they've got no money.

They are trying to feed the kids, not spend seven weeks in Turkey.

That's the first benefit they get, some income support to live on.

'I bought a property in Turkey.

'So, you bought a property in Turkey? Yeah.

'How did you fund that?

'I...went on Deal or No Deal and I was fortunate enough...'

'Yeah.'

The Deal or No Deal...

She didn't seem to realise that, actually, that was a big admission.

It came out not willingly, did it?

It was like, "Oh, what am I saying here?" But yet she told you...

At that time, she didn't know we had that.

But she told you, didn't she? Yeah. Were you surprised by that?

I think she was being funnelled down a dead-end street, you know.

You've been away six weeks, you've set up a business,

what's it all about? How could you afford that?

Well, let's listen to what she says.

'What would you say the general public would

'think of that, the taxpayers?

'They wouldn't be happy. They wouldn't be happy.'

So she understands. Yeah. That's what it boils down to, yeah, yeah.

At the end of the day, she's claiming benefits off people like myself

and yourself who are contributing towards that system.

And then to go out and win that money is the time to say,

"Oh, thank you for your help. I don't need it any more."

Caroline Banana is charged - she is not happy.

CAMERA CLICKS

It's not fair what you're doing.

But the allegations are serious, and a trial date is fixed.

Look at this, Marc.

This is the guy you saw, isn't it?

That's him!

Come on!

I thought their noses looked quite similar.

He's put on so much weight that his ears have disappeared.

Er, I don't know.

The team in Kensington and Chelsea are getting closer to

understanding William Anthony's tangled double life.

This is the car that we saw the other day,

which was outside the hotel in Kilburn.

They are searching the council's computer system for clues.

It's now been three months since he was turned down for his mum's flat

and he declared himself homeless.

That's the car that got all the parking tickets, the silver BMW.

There are a number of cars that seem to be linked to them.

And that's another car. That's another car.

There's been loads.

There's been loads in the past.

For as far back as I can tell he's been claiming benefits,

so how can he afford the cars?

They've also been checking William Anthony's identity, William Stanley.

Not only does he have two passports,

he's been claiming benefits in both names.

It's been going on for a long time, from what we can establish.

He's claiming benefits under the name William Anthony,

but this bank account is in the name William Stanley

and the only thing going into this bank account is Disability Living

Allowance, which is money from the Department for Work and Pensions.

March - ?275.40. April - ?282.50.

May - ?289.60.

The disability money that is going into this account

is for a William Stanley, not for William Anthony.

William Anthony is getting money separately in his own right,

so this sort of shows that he is getting double money

under the two identities.

His fraud has netted him almost ?90,000 in benefits.

Are you ready? Yep.

It's time to get the police involved.

Just the fact that there are two passports

running at the same time should be enough.

But, again, it's up to them whether or not they've got the manpower

to do the amount of addresses that we have got.

Hopefully they will be interested in the case, and then we'll

arrange a date for them to come and carry out the arrest for us.

I think I'm beyond stressed because...

..this is my first Proceeds of Crime case - it's a big one.

Zoe and her legal team are now in court.

It's the case of Ovo Mayomi and his wife Juliet Ubiribo -

they're convicted fraudsters.

The legal action is to make them pay back the money

they stole from the council and anything else they made from crime.

Why don't you fuck off?

There's a lot at stake for everybody.

For the defendant, if we win,

it means they will have to dispose of their assets.

If we lose, we would have to explain about the money we'd used

in legal fees and in costs.

There's negative publicity for the council,

so there is a lot at stake on both sides.

Bang and Olufsen have been very helpful. I've done you a table.

They are still struggling to get hold of some of the original cheques.

Yeah. From what I remember in the previous hearing,

he's just disputing everything. Yes. I think...

Zoe wants the judge to award more than ?1m against Mayomi.

She has to convince the court his wealth comes from crime.

I think that's it for the credit cards in the false ID. Yeah, it is.

There's a lot of bank accounts. I know. Well, there is...

Just revisiting this yesterday and going through it all,

and it's just staggering, really, the number of large transactions.

We have identified a family connection with crime.

So, Mr Mayomi's in-laws for instance, the Ubiribo family,

have been convicted of a number of criminal offences that relate

to drugs and money laundering.

So there are significant worries as to where the money's come from.

Good morning. Good morning. All well?

All well, thank you. How about you? Can I have a word? Yeah, sure.

Mayomi's lawyer wants a chat.

Hopefully he hasn't brought in loads of paperwork

suddenly to ambush us with.

Well, what would happen if he did turn up with a box full of books

and accounting documents at this stage?

We are just going to have to look through it quickly.

News from defence camp is that Mr Mayomi has attended this morning

with a suitcase of documents.

Mayomi says the Nigerian house is owned by his parents.

He's produced thousands of documents to dispute Zoe's claims.

It's a last-minute surprise that could derail the council's case.

What else we can find out? Hmm.

Why didn't we know about this two and a half years ago?

I just don't know.

Mr Mayomi is a hard man to pin down.

Croydon investigators suspect

he's even given the court a false address.

He tells the court that he lives at an address at Catford.

However, his wife is at that address and she is claiming benefits

on the basis that she's a single adult in the house.

He is not supposed to be there. He's not registered at the address.

Somebody's been out to interview Mrs Ubiribo

and she says he visits to see the children at the weekends,

so I don't actually know where Mr Mayomi is.

We try to find out.

For three days, we stake out the address he's given to the court.

We see Juliet Ubiribo, but there is no sign of Mayomi.

We follow him to find out where he is actually living.

He hasn't been asked, as far as I'm aware,

to produce proof of where he lives.

His defence counsel may have an address that we are unaware of.

What's to stop him disappearing?

Ah, it's a good question actually.

What does that say about the system?

It's very easy to tell lies.

Mayomi clocks he's being followed and gives us the slip.

The worry is that he will do the same thing to the authorities.

It's summer in London and most people are enjoying the sun...

..but the investigators in Kensington and Chelsea

are having a hard time.

Marcin thinks he's been rumbled on a stakeout.

This is the son. He starts reversing into the property

and then he just suddenly stops, and then he just comes straight

towards me. And I think, "Right. He's figured out I'm recording him."

He's watching William Anthony, the man who has used

two identities to fleece the system of nearly ?90,000.

You thought he clocked you. And then he drove past staring at me.

He does a three-point turn just behind me, turns around

and then winds his window down.

He looks at me and I think, "OK. I had better wind mine down."

And he goes, "Are you Roger?" or something like that.

I say, "Roger? No, I'm not Roger."

And then he just drove off and he didn't go to the house.

He just drove around the corner and disappeared.

Another bit of bad news is that they can't get William Anthony

arrested any time soon.

We've been waiting at least three months.

There is just lots of red tape and there's other organisations.

It's very frustrating, very frustrating.

It's almost like he could be cleaning up his act

and there will be no evidence left when we do arrest him.

And because he hasn't been arrested,

William Anthony is moving up the council housing list.

He is at a position now where he is actually entitled

to more social housing, to another house.

He's registered with a number of disabilities,

so he's got the points.

He's actually bidding on properties, which means that, I think,

very soon he will be moving back into Kensington and Chelsea,

and be given a nice new housing association or council flat.

It's quite an extraordinary situation. Yeah.

That's him.

And one of the reasons William Anthony is moving up the list

is his supposed disabilities.

Mr Anthony suffers from angina, arthritic heart, hypertension,

arthritis in his hips and hands, panic attacks,

high cholesterol, deaf in one ear and has a speech defect.

You can see from there,

just from the picture that we have been able to obtain from him,

he doesn't walk around normally with a walking stick.

No. That's what the DWP want to interview him about as well.

As well as the two identities that he's been

claiming DWP benefits under, the Disability Living Allowance etc.

Is he actually disabled in the first place?

From looking at him on the video, he seems pretty OK to me.

Appearing fit and well while claiming benefits is one thing,

but we've heard that William Anthony is working.

William Anthony, who gets benefits for a disability, seems to be

in business as a house clearer and I think we should see him in action.

He may have escaped the authorities but our team sets a trap.

Hi there. I'm wondering if you could help me.

I've got a house in Croydon that I really need to get cleared.

What sort of price would you normally be looking at?

For a full load, 250 quid.

250. OK. Sorry, who are you?

Mark. OK.

'It's suspected he's in the removals trade with his son

'and we've got a job for him.' Would you bring enough people

so you can probably get it done in a day or in a morning?

In a day. In a day, OK.

'We've got a house for him to clear out

'and we've made sure it's a big job.'

This is it. Are you Mark?

Yeah, I am. Hi, I'm Tony.

Nice to meet you...finally. Yeah. So much traffic. Come on in.

Right, are you ready for this? Oh, my God.

Yeah. It doesn't end there either, mate.

There's a shelving thing there, this here...

the TV unit behind me. Hmm-hmm.

Don't open the fridge. Right.

THEY LAUGH It's my warning.

So there, this... I knew this was going to happen.

We waited and waited and waited for our...

So, you were waiting for somebody else to come?

And he never showed up, so that's why we was late.

That's fair enough.

You're right, there's definitely more than a load here. Yeah.

'It seems they're a man down, but Mr Anthony,

'who's told the council he suffers heart problems

'and struggles to walk for more than 60m, is up for the challenge.'

A lot of work.

I thought I had a lot of work on my house, but this...

That's that priceless Ming vase gone.

LAUGHTER

70 grand's worth. That's it. Yeah.

'It takes six hours to clear three tonnes of rubbish.

'He might be a fraudster and a cheat, but Mr Anthony can graft.'

Hold it there. Put it down. This is heavy.

I've got the heavy one.

Go on.

Our house has been cleared by a man who claims

Disability Living Allowance in not one, but two identities.

This is a man playing the system for all it's worth.

Mrs Banana is up in court.

She's agrees to plead guilty to six charges

and the council agrees to drop the living together charge.

Well, we got the result. It's what we are looking for.

It started off as an allegation of somebody having some money.

We proved it. We proved there was some work in there as well.

We proved that she's done stuff with the money,

had a lavish lifestyle for a period of time,

while the public are paying their rent and their council tax.

Just one last thought as well. Of those four things that were lost,

a couple of them were to do with co-habitation, weren't they?

I wondered whether having been with you on some of that

surveillance that you might be a bit frustrated by that?

It isn't finished on that because the information

I obtained on my investigation will be passed to Stockport.

Stockport can have a property back.

They can certainly bill him for

any benefit he's had up there whilst it seems he's been living down here.

CHEERING

Mrs Banana gets 200 hours community service

and has to pay back ?6,000 of benefits.

Stockport bill her husband for more than ?2,000, which he's appealing.

Hi, Mrs Banana. I'm from the BBC.

Was there justice done today, do you think?

You won all that money on the game show, didn't you?

And then still kept claiming benefits.

Is that what happened?

Tell me what happened.

What do you say to all the people who say benefits are for those

who need them and you were just cheating the system?

She didn't want to answer, but then the court has already

answered on her behalf, because she was guilty.

She had tens of thousands of pounds in the bank

and continued to claim benefits that are there for the desperate.

That's why she didn't answer.

Old-school criminal, that's what you told me at the time. Yeah.

He was a gentleman, he was, the entire time. Old-school, yeah.

William Anthony has finally been caught.

Kensington and Chelsea asked him to come in

to talk about his new flat, then had him nicked.

He was arrested for benefit fraud, cautioned,

so he didn't have to say anything, and then they searched him.

He was very calm, you know. He was very calm.

He was calm, yeah, like he was expecting it in some ways.

He made a joke about the handcuffs, saying,

"When did you change the handcuffs...

"from the old original ones with the chain in the middle?"

It was a good result at the end of the day.

We've stopped this happening.

We know that there is a passport that he should never have received,

you know, that is normally a custodial sentence anyway.

That's what we want to deter.

We want to deter people from doing this.

William Anthony is called in and charged.

He pleads guilty to six counts of fraud.

But on the day he is due to be sent to prison, he collapses.

It's the third time running sentencing has been delayed

because he claims to be ill.

So Mr Anthony is being put into the ambulance just in front of me.

He's clearly being taken away

and I think that means no court case today.

William Anthony enjoys a few more weeks of freedom

before being sent down for two years.

This is out of my hands. I've done my bit.

I want to believe that I've done a good job and I've covered

as many bases as I can, and I have got as much evidence as I can.

You do your best, you make your enquiries, but at the end

of the day it's up to the judge to decide what he believes.

It's crunch time in Zoe's case.

She'll hear today if all the effort

and money spent on trying get cash back from Mr Mayomi has worked.

After two years investigation, weeks of legal argument

and two hours of summing up...

SHE SIGHS ..it's all over.

What happened? Tell us how you feel.

Well, we've won, in short. Erm...

We won rather well, actually.

It's a good day.

Certainly the judge had the measure of Mr Mayomi and ruled accordingly.

He took the view in his judgment that anything that Mr Mayomi said

was not worthy of belief.

What in terms of a confiscation order?

He's indicated that Mr Mayomi has accrued just shy of

?3m through criminal conduct.

The amount that he has achieved is not necessarily

the amount that is available, but we've still got a really

considerable sum of just under 1.2 million.

So, that has been ordered against him.

He's got to pay that within six months.

If he doesn't pay it within six months,

then he's going to prison for six years.

'It's one of the biggest awards of its kind in the UK.'

Zoe's first case. Zoe's first case.

So how do you feel, Zoe?

Probably still slightly shell-shocked, I think.

Because I've lived and breathed this case for so long it sort of...

Doesn't take your life over,

but I feel like I practically know these people.

This is my first case really, so is this a normal result?

It's a phenomenal result.

You definitely deserve a big glass of wine.

Do you think he will pay?

I've no idea. I have no idea.

It's a question you should ask him.

Hi, Mr Mayomi.

Can I grab a word with you?

How did you think about that? How did that go?

Happy about that?

Nearly 1.2 million, that's a lot of money.

How are you going to pay that back?

I suppose you got six months.

How did it feel when you heard the judge say that he didn't see

any evidence that he could believe?

"No probity," he said, I think.

So you've got six months to get the 1.2 million.

What's your next...? Well, that's not very nice, is it?

What's your next step after 1.2 million?

You've got six months.

Will you pay it, do you think?

I don't think he really wanted to talk to us,

but I suppose he's got bigger things to worry about just now.

1.2 million in six months.

Next time in On The Fiddle,

how ordinary people try it on for a spot of free parking.

Can I...? No, you can't.

How can I calm down when my car was towed?

Because you have taken a disabled space

from somebody who needs the bay.

The con man on benefits with a string of businesses

and posh properties.

This is the latest manifestation of my mid-life crisis,

which seems to be going on forever.

And a seemingly respectable businessman

dodging tens of thousands in VAT.

Can we cut the film, please?

Subtitles By Red Bee Media Ltd