Swoop on £20million asylum seekers' charity

Jul 15 2007

POLICE have smashed a suspected £20 million asylum seeker fraud after swooping on a Midland charity.

Seventy officers raided Astonbrook Housing Association in Birmingham at dawn on Wednesday and arrested seven people, including the chief executive.

The raid came a week after the Sunday Mercury revealed how the charity had been accused of inventing thousands of needy immigrants to claim millions from the Home Office and city council.

Astonbrook gained the biggest Government contract to provide homes for asylum seekers in April 2006.

Since then it has received almost £20 million from the Home Office, via the city council, but police are now looking at where that money has gone.

The charity is owned and run by a group of former Somali asylum seekers. It has contracts in four UK regions - the Midlands, South West, Wales and Yorkshire - and won a five-year Home Office contract just 16 months ago.

Astonbrook was awarded the multi-million contract despite the fact that its chief executive formerly ran another leading refugee support organisation, the Birmingham-based Midland Refugee Council, which collapsed in 2005.

Detectives from West Midlands Police's Economic Crime team descended on two offices belonging to Astonbrook Housing Association in Highgate and Erdington on Wednesday.

They also raided two separate businesses - Outlook Property Services Limited and Gabal Houseware and Language Services Limited - both of which have offices on Stratford Road, Sparkbrook.

Dozens of computers and a mountain of paperwork found at the addresses were taken away in police vans.

Detectives also swooped on several homes, where five men and two women were led away for questioning.

Officials from the Home Office assisted the police as they hunted for potentially incriminating documents.

And in a rare move, the Charity Commission has sent in senior officials to take over the running of Astonbrook following the raids.

The regulatory body is carrying out its own inquiry and has now appointed an interim manager to "protect and safeguard the charity's assets".

Police were called in to investigate Astonbrook weeks ago after the Home Office and Birmingham city council raised concerns about how their millions were being spent.

The Government department and local authority had carried out their own checks to verify the existence of Aston-brook clients, but early inquiries had cast doubts on 2,000 names.

However, before the raids a decision was taken at Government level not to withdraw funding or shut down the charity in order to protect genuine asylum seekeers.

The Home Office last night confirmed it was involved in a multi-agency inquiry.

"The Border and Immigration Agency has been working very closely with other agencies to investigate this matter," a spokesman said: "Given ongoing legal proceedings it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time."

The suspects were quizzed for most of Wednesday before being released on bail until late-November. Detectives will now spend months examining the seized items.

Among the seven people held was Astonbrook's chief executive - former Somali national Mohammed Arwo, 49, from Waldrons Moor, Kings Heath, Birmingham.

He was a director of the charity until October 2003 when he became its chief executive.

Mr Arwo was also formerly a director of the Midlands Refugee Council (MRC), a similar organisation to Astonbrook, which collapsed two years ago despite receiving £1.5 million a year from the city council alone.

At the time, the council Cabinet member for housing was Tory councillor John Lines. He ordered an inquiry into what went wrong at MRC, but to date the only probe carried out has been by the Charity Commission.

Mr Lines holds the same position today and is expected to come under pressure to order a new inquiry into the Astonbrook allegations.

The other six people arrested included one of the charity's current directors, Ahmid Hirad Yassin, 50, who was detained at his Wembley home.

Three previous directors were also held: Miss Sahra Abdillahi Absia, 50, of Wen-lock Court, Stratford Road, Sparkbrook; Miss Asha Ali Mohamed, of Greenway Street, Small Heath, Birmingham and Abdi Wahad Said, of Waldrons Moor, Kings Heath.

Mr Said is a current director of Outlook Property Services. Outlook's secretary, Kaise Ismail, 33, of Stoneleigh Road, Perry Barr, was also held. Miss Absia is the current secretary of Gabal Houseware and Language Services Limited.

The Charity Commission, which regulates 190,000 charities in England and Wales and carries out 60 such inquiries each year, has confirmed it has launched a formal inquiry into Astonbrook's financial affairs.

But interim managers are installed in only the most serious of cases.

The Commission awarded Astonbrook charitable status soon after it was set up in 2002, which meant it could lobby for public grants not available to entirely private companies.

The status requires charities to supply the Commission with annual accounts but Astonbrook has not provided figures in five years. The charity has lodged some brief details with Companies House, which state it employed 75 staff who were paid more than £1 million in wages.

Mr Mohammed Arwo was not at his Kings Heath home yesterday and no-one from Astonbrook was available for comment.