Jail for £60k benefit con

Jan 14 2008 By Mark Cowan

A FRAUDSTER faces being kicked out of the country after being jailed for a year for his part in a plot to steal £60,000 of taxpayers' cash.

Congolese national Yemo Lingwendu, 47, from Handsworth, cashed dozens of benefit cheques that had been stolen and doctored.

He was nabbed after investigators launched an inquiry into the high number of cheques going missing from sorting offices.

Lingwendu was sentenced to 12 months in jail at Leicester Crown Court on Wednesday after pleading guilty to conspiracy to defraud.

The judge made a recommendation for the failed asylum seeker to be deported. Papers have already been served on him.

More than 150 cheques for benefits paid by the Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue & Customs were stolen from postal sorting offices.

They were then altered to show different details of payee, value and address.

In three months between December 2006 and February 2007, some of the missing giros were cashed at post offices across Warwickshire and Leicestershire.

Video evidence showed Lingwendu cashing some of the cheques and forensic examination identified his fingerprints on them. He admitted visiting post offices to make fraudulent transactions.

He was arrested in Buckinghamshire last May attempting to cash a cheque using a stolen credit card as identity.

Revenue & Customs spokeswoman Jennie Kendall, said: "This fraud impacted on those legitimately claiming benefits with their payments being diverted into the hands of a criminal, causing severe hardship and anguish to those waiting to receive them."