Hamza sons to be sentenced for scam
Three sons of jailed cleric Abu Hamza are due to be sentenced for their involvement in a £1 million luxury car scam.
Hamza's sons, Hamza Kamel, 22, and Mohamed Mostafa, 27, helped run the two-year fraud with the cleric's stepson Mohssin Ghailam, 28, Southwark Crown Court heard.
Kamel and Mostafa, of Acton, West London, have variously admitted fraud, handling stolen goods and money laundering between January 2007 and November last year, while Ghailam, of Shepherd's Bush, London, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud.
The trio and other men exploited a loophole in the vehicle registration system to target expensive makes including Mercedes, BMW and Range Rover which had been left in long-stay car parks.
Pretending the vehicles were theirs, they tricked the DVLA into transferring ownership to an alias and sending new log books to front addresses. Keys were then obtained from dealers and the cars stolen, before being sold to unsuspecting buyers or used as collateral to take out loans which were never repaid.
The brothers and four other London men, who have also admitted their involvement, will be sentenced by Judge Gregory Stone QC at London's Southwark Crown Court.
At a sentencing hearing on Wednesday, Martyn Bowyer, prosecuting, said: "This was a sophisticated, well-planned and professionally executed enterprise".
The court heard the men were arrested on November 5, 2008, following a Met Police investigation in to the organised theft and resale of luxury cars in London.
Mr Bowyer said officers identified 32 vehicles which were either stolen, targeted for theft or used as collateral to fraudulently obtain loans. A number had been taken abroad and sold.
Mr Bowyer said: "The value of those 32 vehicles as they would have been if sold as new would have exceeded £1 million."
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