A MAN from Redditch was among those jailed for conspiring to manufacture and supply fake ID documents to help immigration offenders live illegally in the UK.
Madalitso Majawa, 33, of Ombersley Close, Woodrow, was sentenced to six months in prison at Woolwich Crown Court in London on Friday, January 26.
Majawa was part of a criminal organisation which was dismantled following an operation led by Immigration Enforcement’s Criminal and Financial Investigation (CFI) Team.
From late 2015 until June 2017, officers gathered evidence which ultimately led to the conviction of seven conspirators from Coventry, Nottingham, Redditch and London.
Over the course of their investigation, officers unearthed wide scale distribution of British passports, British residence permits, degree certificates and Constructions Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) cards – all of them fake.
Prices ranged from £900 for a passport to £200 for the CSCS card and degree certificate.
The gang was led by Steven Kanaventi, 39, of Mulliner Street, Coventry, and Alfred Adekoya, 47, of Kingslake Street, London. They were each sentenced to three years four months and two weeks imprisonment having pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture a fake document at an earlier hearing.
Adekoya was arrested on June 20 last year after making an exchange inside a betting shop in Woolwich with a man subsequently identified as Luke Nkanta, 29.
When Adekoya was stopped and searched shortly after the transaction had been made he was found in possession of three counterfeit British passports.
When Nkanta, of Wordsworth House, Woolwich, was stopped he was found with an envelope containing a counterfeit British passport.
Also arrested on 20 June was Abdul Azeeza, 57.
When officers raided his home address in Missenden, Inville Road, they found him in possession of a fake residence permit, a fake passport as well as some of the paraphernalia – including specially adapted tools for dismantling passports, threads for stitching, paint thinners and laminating equipment – used in the manufacture of fake ID documents.
He also had numerous orders for fake documents, some on his phone and some completed on betting slips.
Kanaventi was arrested at his home address just over a week later on 28 June. Arrested on the same day, each at their home addresses, were three accomplices: Paul Kanaventi, 37, of Forster Street, Nottingham, Victor Ariyo, 53, of Rye Hill Park, London and Redditch man Majawa.
Inspector Ben Thomas, from CFI, said: “Steven Kanaventi was a particularly brazen operator, to the extent that his social media alias – Chris Namatchanga – was a clear play on words of ‘name changer’.”
Like Adekoya and Steven Kanaventi, Ariyo, Azeeza, Paul Kanaventi, Nkanta and Majawa had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing.
Ariyo admitted conspiracy to manufacture a fake document and money laundering and was jailed for three years.
Azeeza admitted possessing fake documents and possessing equipment with the intention of making fake documents. and was given four years.
Paul Kanaventi admitted money laundering and was given months in prison, Nkanta and Majawa both admitted possessing fake ID documents with improper intention and were jailed for 16 months and six months respectively.
CFI will now pursue the confiscation of £135,000 of cash under the Proceeds of Crime Act which was sitting in a bank account belonging to Ariyo.
