A mortgage fraud gang led by a charity boss and involving his wife and daughter have been ordered to pay back £4.3 million.
Nine defendants were this week ordered to repay the huge amount after they netted more than £15 million in a lengthy and elaborate con.
The gang was headed by Mehboob Akhtar, also known as Saint Pir Pandariman, a self-proclaimed spiritualist faith healer. He ran the Muslim charity the Darbar Unique Centre, in Stoke-on-Trent.
Birmingham Crown Court heard Pandariman, 61, used donations from followers to set up a portfolio of 41 buy-to-let properties, with the help of his right-hand man, Mohammed Zabbir Hussain who admitted his part in the huge scam.
Pandariman’s wife Kadija Akhtar, 54, and daughter Rushbmmani Akhtar, 29, were also part of the gang who were jailed in April 2016 for what was believed to be a £4.4 million fraud.
But it has now emerged the total benefit from the fraud was more than three times higher than the £4.4 million figure.
Proceeds of crime hearings for the gang this week heard they actually got away with a staggering £15,569,554.
Pandariman, of Farman Close, Meir, and Zabbir Hussain, of Castleton Road, Lightwood, made a total of £10.9 million alone from the complex conspiracy.
Nine defendants have now been ordered by Birmingham Crown Court to pay back a total of £4,346,853 - believed to be one of the biggest ever single proceeds of crime recoveries by West Midlands Crown Prosecution Service.
