Woman who conned letting agents is sent to jail

A woman who repeatedly conned letting agents into thinking she was a respectable married mother of three looking for a large family home to rent has been jailed for four years and three months.

This was despite initial police reluctance to get involved.

Rose Chimuka, 32, of Peterborough, rented the properties, but then divided them into bedsits and sub-let them.

She was found guilty of 11 counts of fraud after a scam linked to six addresses across south London.

Between August 2009 and June 2011, Chimuka used a false name to approach agents. The aliases used were Rose Manzimay, Mary Manzimay, Amanda Nadacunda and Rose Nadacunda

She told the agents she was looking for somewhere to rent for her and her family. She would ask them about schools and claim her husband worked away.

When a suitable property was found, she would rent it, then sub-divide it, put locks on internal doors and sub-let the property – in one case,  to 15 people.

Chimuka would collect rent money in cash from her ‘tenants’ but failed to pay her own rent.

When the real landlords went to their properties, they were astonished to find large numbers of people living in their houses without their knowledge.

Julian Jones, prosecuting, said: “She was a systematic fraudster out to make a gain for herself on a systematic large scale. She perpetrated a widespread fraud in South London in relation to the sub-letting of houses.”

He said that some of the frauds had been committed ‘while on bail for previous ones’.

Mr Jones added: “Initially, landlords and tenants who asked for police assistance were told it was a criminal matter, but it is now presented as a criminal case because the prosecution say when you look at the whole picture, the systematic criminal fraud emerges.”

Chimuka was arrested at least seven times and questioned by police in Kennington, Battersea and Croydon before criminal charges were finally brought. During questioning, she would claim that she was a legitimate tenant struggling to meet the rent, and having to sub-let to meet the financial demands of the landlords.|

Croydon Crown Court heard that further counts, totalling around £27,000, were dropped because the prosecution lost contact with the tenants they needed to call as witnesses.

DC Lee Haslett of Croydon CID said: “This was an elaborate fraud and Chimuka was very calculating in committing this crime.
 
“She would go from place to place sub-letting the properties and collecting cash from her ‘tenants’ until the real landlord found out what was going on, at which point she would move on to a new area and property and repeat the process.

“The fact Chimuka carried out this ruse on numerous occasions showed she had clear intentions to defraud her victims – both the owners of the properties and the people who believed they were her legitimate tenants.”

Chimuka is likely to be the subject of further investigation under the Proceeds of Crime Act, which could mean that her ill-gotten gains are confiscated.