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Two conmen convicted of defrauding millions have been ordered to pay back more than £30 million (31 August 2012)

Date: 31/08/2012
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, Two conmen convicted of defrauding millions have been ordered to pay back more than £30 million

Under the recovery of criminal proceeds act two conmen jailed for a total of 20 years for running Britain’s biggest ever mortgage fraud were ordered to pay back more than £30 million today.
In June 2011 Afzal was jailed for 13 years and McGarry was locked up for seven years.
Saghir Afzal, 50, defrauded banks out of £49 million by buying cheap properties including a cowshed and an abandoned air base and paid a crooked chartered surveyor Ian McGarry, 43, to get false valuations.
Between 2004 and 2006 companies controlled by Afzal of Birmingham and his brother Nisar, 54, bought six commercial properties for just £5,688,125.
After purchasing the properties the conman was provided with fake valuations by McGarry a director at Dunlop Haywards Lorenz, which were then used to deceive banks into lending £49,287,000.
The Afzal brothers had sent £26m to Pakistan and had bribed McGarry with lavish overseas holidays in Dubai, an Aston Martin car, cash in brown paper envelopes, and three London properties which all collectively amounted to more than £1m to aid their scam.
Saghir who continued denying his involvement in the scam had refused to take part in proceedings.
Judge Martin Beddoe said Saghir told him that he was wholly unaware of the fraud and he was the dupe of two men and as a result he had no idea about where the bulk of the money had gone.
But the judge has said if he had to make an estimate of Afzals wealth then, as a result of good investments, his assets would be worth £60m.
But, on the basis he shared the profit of this fraud with his brother it had to be concluded that that was unlikely.
Today they were ordered to pay back a total of £30,826,013.86 in one of the largest confiscation orders ever made in the UK or spend a further 16 years behind bars.
The judge ordered that Saghir pay back £29,276,565.91p within six months or face another ten years in jail.
The court heard Saghir’s Afzal assets are believed to include property in Birmingham, Pakistan, the US, and Spain, and the £26m that was sent to Pakistan
McGarry was told he must pay back £1,549.447.95 within six months or spend another six years behind bars.
Jailing Saghir Afzal and McGarry last summer Judge Beddoe described the fraud as a ‘massive and carefully orchestrated confidence trick’.
McGarry abused his position to provide the false valuations which persuaded the banks that the sites were a good investment.
Afzal, of Edgbaston, Birmingham, and McGarry, of St Albans, Hertfordshire, admitted two charges of conspiracy to obtain money transfers by deception and four counts of obtaining money transfers by deception.
Nisar Afzal is thought to be in Pakistan and is still wanted by the SFO for his alleged role in the fraud.

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