British Indian woman in the net of 1mn pounds fraud crackdown

More than 1 million pounds worth of assets have been recovered by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) following a civil recovery investigation into a Nigerian fraudster and his long-term British Indian partner, who both led extravagant lifestyles despite their combined declared annual income not exceeding 49,000 pounds.

Ayodele Oluseye Odewale, also known as Ayodele Balogun, 42, and his partner of 21 years – 40-year-old Londoner Sara Bharat Yadav, were ordered to hand 1,011,431 pounds to the NCA at the High Court under the UK Proceeds of Crime Act this week.

“Odewale and Yadav had extravagant lifestyles funded from stealing the identities of honest, law abiding citizens. We have recovered their assets so they see no benefit from their unlawful activity,” said Andy Lewis, head of Asset Denial at the NCA.

“We are pleased our commitment to this investigation has paid off, having worked closely with partners including the Metropolitan Police and the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit. We will continue our work to identify those linked to economic crime, and take away their illicit assets,” he said.

NCA investigators found that the couple had hundreds of thousands of pounds passing through their bank accounts annually, despite Odewale not having had any legitimate employment earnings since his release from prison in 2005, and far in excess of Yadav’s managerial salary.

According to the NCA, Odewale is a convicted fraudster with numerous dishonesty offences between 1998 and 2016 and made millions from his scams.