Huddersfield bank manager one of ten in court over £500,000 bank scam

A Huddersfield man has been jailed for his part in a £½m bank fraud.

James Clegg was one of two business managers at the NatWest bank in Bradford city centre who were behind a sophisticated fraud conspiracy.

The conspiracy, which could have netted the criminals up to £500,000, involved the authorisation of bogus business loans and the use of stolen identities of innocent people.

The ringleader was Anzar Hussain, 43, of Rayner Avenue, Bradford, who only got a job with the bank back in the late 1990s after he failed to reveal details of his previous convictions.

Hussain’s so-called “banking buddy” James Clegg, 34, of Storths Road, Birkby, Huddersfield, processed 14 fraudulent business loans totalling £350,000 and created six more customer profiles which could have cost the bank another £150,000 if they had been successful.

Bradford Crown Court heard the bank lost around £290,000 as a result of the loans scam and Hussain, Clegg and nine other people were sentenced at the end of a 22-month inquiry which involved thousands of pages of documentary evidence and four separate trials.

Judge Jonathan Rose jailed Hussain for a total of six years and three months for offences of conspiracy to defraud and obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception.

Judge Rose said Hussain had used Clegg as a “shield” by getting his colleague to complete the loan applications in case the fraud plot came unstuck.

Clegg, who had no previous convictions, was jailed for four years for his role in the scam and Judge Rose said the case was an illustration of how bank security could be significantly undermined from the inside by determined and intelligent employees motivated by greed.

Prosecutor Mr Chris Smith said the £25,000 figure was used for each bogus business loan because that was maximum amount which could be authorised by Hussain and Clegg at a local level.

“These were loans being sought in the identities of genuine people,” said Mr Smith.

“In many cases identities were stolen and the conspirators, in our submission, gave no thought as to the consequences that would befall those people.

Mr Smith submitted that Hussain played a “pivotal role”” while Clegg did his bidding.

Judge Rose highlighted the impact on some of the innocent people caught up in the scam including a man with a learning disability who had endured the “dreadful ordeal” being arrested and interviewed.

The judge said Clegg was a man with weaknesses, in particular his use of cannabis, and he accepted that Hussain had embroiled him in the crime.

Brothers Arfan Shah, 37, of Bradford, and Imran Shah, 39, of Shipley, received jail terms of four years and five years respectively for their roles in providing documentation, correspondence addresses and companies to launder the cash.

Choudhary Zeb, 40, of Bradford, was given a reduced prison sentence of 18 months after he admitted his involvement and gave evidence during the trial of his co-accused.

Shahid Iqbal, 42, of Bury, was given a two-year community order.

Sarvjit Singh, 52, and his 33-year-old wife Jaswinder Kaur, both of Bradford, allowed their details to be used in fraudulent loan applications.

Singh had his six-month jail term suspended for two years and he was ordered to do 200 hours unpaid work for the community. His wife was made the subject of a 12-month community order.

Liaquat Mahmood, 53, of Bradford, was given a 12-month jail term, suspended for two years, and ordered to do 200 hours unpaid work for fraud.

Imran Mirza, 35, of Bradford, was jailed for 15 months after he was involved in the laundering of money.

Amber Hussain, 26, of Bradford, was given a two-year community order and told do 180 hours unpaid work for a similar offence relating to one stolen cheque.

Judge Rose commended the work of Det Con Christopher Hargreaves who had been responsible for much of the complex investigation work.