A care home assistant who lived a life of luxury on the back of her mortgage advisor husband’s multi-million pound mortgage fraud has now been sentenced to 4 years in prison.
Victor Ayinde-Azeez, a once respected financial advisor, defrauded high street banks to provide fraudulent loans on 24 homes in just six weeks at the height of the property boom.
Along with his wife Ruth, 26, Mr Ayinde-Azeez is also alleged to have laundered £1.25 million.
The case once again calls into question the validity of security checks carried out by lenders as they courted wealthy customers and buy-to-let investors at the peak of the property market.
The main lenders to fall prey to the deception were Birmingham Midshires, Bradford & Bingley and Cheltenham and Gloucester. Much of their money was transferred to foreign banks, mainly based in Dubai.
Mr Ayinde-Azeez fled Britain before the £8.4 million conspiracy was uncovered, but Ruth was caught when she returned to the UK to collect their son.
Kenyan-born Ruth Ayinde-Azeez was described as being “sucked into” the criminal world of her husband, who is now thought to be living as a fugitive in his native Nigeria, continuing to enjoy a millionaire’s lifestyle.
Although her counsel sought to paint her as a naïve victim, trapped by their child into a life of deceit, Judge Anthony Beddoe, who carried out the sentencing, declared that their relationship “became a meeting of minds.”
He pointed out that Mrs Ayinde-Azeez was “fully prepared” to leave her son in the UK and follow her husband overseas, and seemed set to launder a great deal more money in the future.
At the height of their lavish spending, the couple lived in a six-bedroom mansion with 12 plasma screen TVs and drove a top-of-the-range Bentley and Land Rover. In between shopping sprees at Harrods and Selfridges, they were regular jetsetters, staying at high-end resorts and spending conspicuously at local nightspots.
Whilst Victor Ayinde-Azeez and a further accomplice remain at large, Ruth and three others who were also sentenced for their part in the fraud will from today be beginning an all together less exciting kind of life.