Jailed, Somali fraudster who sat citizenship tests for refugees
A SOMALI fraudster who travelled around the UK taking citizenship tests for refugees has been jailed for 32 months.
Unemployed father- of- five Ahmed Ali used fake travel documents at test centres in Liverpool, Slough, Croydon and Ilford in the year-long fraud.
The 34-year-old fraudster, who came to the UK as a refugee in 1994, failed the first three ‘Life in the UK’ tests and was arrested after the authorities became suspicious. He was then caught trying to take a test for a fourth person under another false identity while on bail.
‘The defendant had, on four occasions, in his possession false passports when he attended test centres around the country ... to take the UK Citizenship Test,’ prosecutor Andrew Ramsubhag told Croydon Crown Court yesterday.
‘That test itself is a pre-requisite for someone being granted full UK citizenship into the country. As a result of Mr Ali’s actions the people who he was purporting to be could have been given full UK citizenship had the authorities in charge of the tests not apprehended him at the time.’
Ali sat the first test with a fake UK travel document in Liverpool in December 2015.
He took another test with a fake document in Slough on February 1 last year, leading to a warning to be sent out to other test centres. He was then arrested at a test centre in Croydon, south London, on June 10 when he showed up with a fake Somali passport. He sat another test in Ilford, east London, on December 17 while on bail.
Ali, of north-east London, was sentenced for one count of fraud and one of possession of identity documents with intent for each of the four visits to test centres.
He was given eight months for each count, with the counts for the same visits to run concurrently, totalling a consecutive 32 months in jail.
Judge Daniel Flahive praised test centre staff for spotting the fraud and stopping four people illegally obtaining citizenship.
Jailing Ali, he said: ‘This was a deliberate targeting of the system so that you might help those who would otherwise not have been able to obtain what they wanted to in terms settlement or British citizenship.’
Sally Lakin, defending, said Ali was not the ‘mastermind’ and was pressured into carrying out the scam after racking up gambling debts of £7,500.