Pakistani man jailed for staying in UK illegally with stolen ID given by home office worker

AN EMPLOYEE of the home office has been accused of handing over a stolen ID card to a Pakistani man that enabled him to stay illegally in the UK for two decades.

According to a report by Daily Mail, Abadat Ali reached the British shores from Pakistan in 2004 on a multi-visit visa and was helped to adopt the identity of an individual named Jamil Ahmed so that he could stay back in the country, Leeds Crown Court was told.

Ali has now been jailed for 15 months.

A judge told that he could be deported to his country after serving half of the sentence in custody.

Ali, now 59, secured permission to stay in the UK using a fake identity supplied by Shamsu Iqbal, who had been imprisoned for 11 years in 2018.

A former Home Office worker, Iqbal was at the heart of a conspiracy that permitted hundreds of illegal immigrants to remain in the country. The Mail uncovered the corrupt scheme, exposing how the group profited over £6.18 million from the illicit operation.

Prosecutor David Hall told the court that Iqbal had helped people by giving them sensitive home office information, enabling his clients to use genuine immigration profiles.

Iqbal was once labelled the 'lynchpin' of a gang that exploited his 'trusted' position to manipulate records, ensuring that at least 437 individuals could stay in the UK illegally.

His jail term of 11 years was the longest that English courts handed down for conspiracy to aid illegal immigration which carries the maximum term of 14 years.

Iqbal, along with three other men involved in the conspiracy, were sentenced to a combined total of 31 years by Judge Peter Gower QC at Croydon Crown Court six years ago.

According to home office statisticians, the potential loss to taxpayers would have amounted to £58 million if all those involved had claimed benefits throughout the six years of the scam.

When the main orchestrator, Iqbal, was apprehended, investigators discovered bank accounts containing over £1 million in cash—far exceeding the annual salary of his home office job, which amounted to just £23,000.

In the latest trial at Leeds Crown Court, Hall disclosed that Ali's last interaction with the Home Office occurred in July 2004. The prosecutor elaborated, stating, "Using his corrupt details, he gave his address in Leeds and uploaded bogus photos purporting to be the man. He claimed asylum and was interviewed in 2014 under the identity and appealed", The Mail report added.

Ali was apprehended on August 22, 2022, and taken to Elland Road police station, where he persisted in claiming to be Jamil during questioning.

Subsequently charged and brought before the court, he allegedly simulated mental health issues, as per the prosecutor's account.

Hall remarked, "At one point, he lacked legal representation and behaved erratically while in the dock."

Ali ultimately pleaded guilty to two charges of obtaining leave to enter or remain in the UK through deceitful means.

Judge Ray Singh called Ali's visitor's visa from Pakistan as a 'perfectly lawful application', but told the defendant that his living in the US for 20 years was "undoubtedly serious offences" that brought the entire immigration system into disrepute.

"There are people coming into the country who are genuine asylum seekers and people like you bring that system into disrepute," he said before announcing the jail term for Ali.