A shocking mortgage scam worth up to £5 million in south Wales has been uncovered, resulting in jail sentences for four people.
Mark Cainen, 44, Paul John, 44, Emma Davey, 34 and Ben Pickering, 34, were all part of a scam which went so far they had to change their names by deed poll to make it work.
Pickering, was at one point a prospective candidate for the Conservative party in his area, but more recently worked as a film producer. John worked as a financial advisor and used his job position to put through the fraudulent applications for the mortgages, assisted by Davey.
Judge Keith Thomas said, “These offences were fuelled not by economic necessity, but by greed.”
The head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Complex Casework Unit for Wales, Catrin Evans, said after the case, “These four defendants were involved in an audacious, systematic and very large scale financial fraud, committed over a long period.
“The group’s activities were undone by meticulous and professional work by expert financial investigators, working in tandem with specialist complex casework lawyers… All four have now rightly been held to account for their actions.”
Pickering was jailed for six years, John for three years and four months, and Cainen for eight. Davey was given a twelve month sentence, suspended for two years, and 200 hour’s unpaid work.
With so many people struggling to get amortgage or to get on the property ladder, fraudulent crimes in the market are only going to make things harder and more unfair for people after legitimate home ownership.
