Congolese Couple Jailed In The UK For Lying About Their Financial Status!

Benefits cheats who masterminded a £188,000 fraud after being granted asylum to stay in Britain have been jailed. Mother-of-two Nicole Mwamba and her second husband William Kapuya kept their marriage a secret to illegally claim benefits on four properties for eight years.The couple, from the Congo, also rented out one of the homes, dodged council tax, and fraudulently claimed both disability and income support.
Jailed: Nicole Mwamba, 47, and her second husband William Kapuya, also 47, have been jailed for claiming benefits on four properties in south London and Surrey as well as disability allowance and income support
It came after Nicole Mwamba, 47, and her first husband were granted political asylum in the UK on the grounds that he had been persecuted for his political beliefs.
The couple claimed all his property and savings were confiscated in their native country.
However, after he died his assets were all transferred to Ms Mwamba's account in the UK.
Unemployed Ms Mwamba started receiving housing benefits in 1998, claiming to have no savings or assets.
But in November 2004, she posed as an executive earning £42,000-a-year to land a mortgage on a two-bedroom house in Selhurst.
She paid for the £18,000 deposit on the home - now worth £262,000 - using her illegally-claimed housing benefits.
Later, she rented out the property and moved into an address secretly owned by her doctor brother in Upper Norwood, south east London - where she filed another benefits claim.
Assets: Mwamba posed as an executive to land a mortgage on a two-bedroom house in Selhurst (left) before renting it out, claiming further benefits at her brother's house, and buying a London house with Kapuya (right)
Lies: Mwamba was granted asylum in the UK with her first husband who claimed he had been persecuted for his political beliefs and stripped of all assets. But when he died, all his savings were transferred to her account
Failing to declare a change in circumstances, she then bought a £280,000 home in Caterham, Surrey, with her current husband Mr Kapuya.
She told lenders she was a £57,000-a-year finance director befor eputting down a £27,000 cash deposit.
Meanwhile, Mr Kapuya, 47, also claimed housing benefit at their Caterham home - as well as at a house in Brixton, south east London, and at another property in Purley, south London.
He also fraudulently claimed severe disability allowance.
The couple boosted their sizeable income with £736-a-month from the French welfare system via a Congolese friend in Belgium.
And thousands of pounds of income support was paid into the account of Ms Mwamba's 15-year-old daughter.
Mwamba was jailed for two-and-a-half years at Croydon Crown Court on Monday. Kapuya received a 14-month sentence.
Prosecutor Miss Francesca Levett told the court: 'This case involves a number of identities and addresses and throughout her claims Mwamba said she had no savings or capital.
'She was keen to keep these two identities appart. This was a calculated and contrived decision by Mwamba to only give the Department and Work and Pensions (DWP) the information she wanted them to know.'
'As a benefit claimant she was poor and needy, but as a mortgage applicant she was successful and employed.
'Mwamba has never worked and she needed to pay her mortgage somehow.