A Nigerian, Mr. Ifeanyi Chuks Iheama, who used a forged passport to obtain a job with the Health and Care NHS in Worcester, United Kingdom was on Tuesday sentenced to 12 months imprisonment at Hereford Crown Court.
Ifeanyi Chuks Iheama, aged 38, arrived in the United Kingdom on a student visa but was refused an extension because he had submitted false documents, and before he could be removed from the country, he went on the run. A statement obtained from the United Kingdom Border Control Agency yesterday said.
However, after intelligence was received about Iheama’s whereabouts, he was arrested by the UK Border Agency on 6 April 2011 at Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust where he worked.
After Iheama was arrested, investigators found that he had obtained a false stamp in his Nigerian passport which showed that he had the right to work in the United Kingdom.
The UK Immigration said that the accused person had used this forged passport to obtain employment with the trust’s finance department in Worcester where he had worked from August 2009 until the day of his arrest.
He was however, charged with two counts of possession of false identity documents and one count of fraud and was found guilty on 19 April 2012, after a trial at Worcester Crown Court.
At Hereford Crown Court on Tuesday, the Nigerian criminal was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment for each of the three counts to run concurrently.
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom Border Agency has said that it would seek to deport Iheama Chuks after he had served his sentence in the country’s prison.
In the statement obtained by LEADERSHIP yesterday, Neil Cross, from the UK Border Agency’s Criminal and Financial Investigation team, said: “We are cracking down on immigration crime, detaining, prosecuting and removing people and gangs who have been abusing the immigration system. While this scam involved document fraud, we are also tackling sham marriages, illegal working and people smuggling.”