Oldhamer at centre of £150k scam

AN Oldham woman has been jailed for two years after a bogus insurance claims company conned solicitors out of almost £150,000.

Vahida Iqbal (32), of Bamford Street, Chadderton, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit fraud at Manchester Crown Court.

She was arrested after the United Kingdom Borders Agency carried out a raid on an apartment in Beetham Tower, Manchester, as part of an operation to combat illegal immigration.

The apartment was being used by registered company North-West Claims Ltd.

It managed personal injury claims following car accidents, referring them to local solicitors for a fee, but the collisions were fabricated.

A total of 19 firms have come forward to say they lost £139,500.

Two other people were found guilty of conspiracy to commit fraud. Safdar Ali (34), of Dunley Close, Belle Vue, was jailed for four years and Kadija Nasser Ahmed (21), of Outwood Road, Heald Green, was jailed for 15 months.

Irfan Manzoor (35), who is already in prison, Javaid Hussain Shah (30), of Carrgreen Close, Manchester; and Amjad Hussain (36), of Baycroft Grove, Northern Moor, admitted conspiracy to commit fraud. They received jailed sentences totalling three-and-a-half years.

Detective Constable Martyn Cunningham said: “The full extent of the damage caused by the bogus enterprise is not known, as not all of the law firms affected have come forward.

“Furthermore, we do not know how much time was wasted by solicitors working on these completely fictitious cases.

“Even though its sole purpose was to fraudulently make money, this company operated like a legitimate business. But this was a fraud that was large in scale, meticulously planned, deliberate in its intention, directly targeted at its victims and tenaciously executed to obtain maximum revenue. This was, at the heart of it, a case of organised crime.”