Three jailed over mortgage scam

The title deeds of four homes were obtained

Two men and a woman have been jailed for an elaborate mortgage fraud which netted them more than £1.7m.

Mohammed Urfan Al Haq, 27, Shazad Hussain Aslam, 27, and Sandeep Kaur, 23, faced money laundering and fraud charges at Birmingham Crown Court.

They fraudulently obtained the title deeds to four homes in the West Midlands and northern England before using them as security to obtain loans.

Al Haq and Kaur were jailed for four

years and Aslam for five years.

Al Haq, of no fixed address, was sentenced to four years imprisonment for conspiracy to defraud and two years for conspiracy to money launder. He had pleaded guilty to both offences.

The sentences would run concurrently, Judge Robert Juckes QC ruled.

Aslam, of Alum Rock Road, Birmingham, and Kaur, of Duckhouse Road, Wolverhampton, were both found guilty of conspiracy to defraud after a two-week trial in June.

'Sophisticated' fraud

The judge told them: "This was a conspiracy to defraud of a truly sophisticated kind.

"It is to be clearly distinguished from the normal sort of mortgage fraud."

Al Haq visited the properties in Birmingham, Coventry, Nottingham and Greater Manchester, posing as a prospective buyer.

The defendants managed to submit fraudulent documents to the Land Registry to obtain title deeds, and successfully raised money from four separate properties.

Using a false identity, Al Haq set up a bank account in Birmingham, into which the loans were paid before being cashed and laundered in to gold bullion.

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One of the fraudsters was caught on CCTV buying the gold

Judge Juckes said the owners "had their houses mortgaged under their feet and behind their backs" as a result of the fraud.

He said Al Haq carried out his role with confidence and acted like a "successful and wealthy young businessman".

Of Aslam and Kaur he said: "They had both worked in banks for a number of years.

"They were both highly intelligent young people who used their intelligence in this instance for blatant dishonesty."

The court heard that the plot netted the three a total of £1.177m, of which nearly £800,000 has not been recovered.