ARTAN:£211,000 DOLE CHEAT CAUGHT WHEN SHE TRIED TO STEAL SHAMPOO

A Somalian asylum seeker who netted £211,000 in benefits was only caught out when she tried to steal a £3 bottle of shampoo, a court heard.

The woman used the two the identities Iyan Artan, 33, and 30-year-old Ubax Said, to pocket an assortment of state handouts for more than a decade.

She arrived in the UK from wartorn Somalia as a child and was awarded ‘exceptional leave to remain’ here from 1998, Blackfriars Crown Court heard.

But her greed became her downfall last summer when she picked up a discarded Boots receipt in the street.

She went into the shop, chose a corresponding bottle of shampoo from the shelf, and asked for her money back.

Suspicious staff called police who arrived on the scene to find £2,000 cash in her bag, along with ID documents which she had used to run the fraud.

A raid on one of her two north London apartments uncovered a pile of papers which revealed her two identities. The cynical crook gave herself the middle name ‘Lucky.’

Jailing the woman – whose true identity is unknown – for 21 months Judge Peter Clarke QC told her:

‘One of the particularly disgraceful things is that you come to this country and take money when we are looking after your starving countrymen back in the Horn of Africa.’

Philip Jones, prosecuting, said she first entered this country as a child with an older relative in the mid 1990s, when she submitted the Said identity and claimed asylum.

She was housed in a two-bedroom flat in The Triangle, Cyrus St, Islington, and received benefits from Islington Council apparently legally.

But on June 6 2000, she turned up at the Home Office with a little boy she had borrowed from someone for the visit, claiming she was Iyan Artan.

She said she and her child had just been smuggled in to the country having escaped a miserable life in Africa.

In reality she had been living here all along, off the public purse.

Mr Jones said: ‘She was already living here but claimed asylum, saying she came through an agent.

‘She now accepts that she at no time had such a dependant child and it is that that made many of her claims false.’

Because she had previously entered the country as a minor, her biometric data was not taken at that time and the authorities could not trigger a match in the system when she presented as an adult.

She accepted another free flat in Mansfield Road, Hampstead, and drew another set of handouts including income support, council tax and housing benefit, child benefit and employment and support allowance.

These were courtesy of the Department of Work and Pensions and Camden Council.

It is not known whether she lived at the new flat at all, or sublet it for an additional income.

Four years’ later in 2005 she was granted indefinite leave to remain relating to her first asylum claim.

The benefits were paid February 28 this year, well after she was arrested.

She kept her claims with Camden Council secret from Islington, and vice versa, and simply kept renewing them as required.

As Said she received £92,494 in handouts, as Artan she was paid £118,938.

She now insists her real identity is Artan but, to this day, the authorities are still not sure who she really is.

She claims one close family member was killed in the conflict in Somalia, and another shot, and she suffers from a serious health condition.

The woman, of Cyrus Street, Islington, admitted 14 counts of false accounting, one of obtaining a money transfer by deception, fraudulently obtaining a tax credit, and obtaining leave to remain, between June 5, 2000 and February 28 this year.

Judge Clarke said: ‘This was a dishonest offence committed over a long period of time.

‘You have obtained benefit from this country of over £200,000. This was a colossal amount of money.

‘We will probably never know what you did with the money.’

Despite his doubts over finding any assets, the judge set confiscation proceedings to begin on November 18.

She will serve half her sentence in jail, less 105 days she has spent on remand.

Councillor Theo Blackwell, Camden Council Cabinet member for Finance, said: ‘This is a particularly shocking case considering the amount of money involved and the number of different frauds committed. 

‘Benefits such as housing benefit are for those in genuine need and Camden Council will not tolerate money being siphoned off into the pockets of cheats and fraudsters.’
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