Donald Nwachuckwu, a 41-year-old senior pastor at the Kingdom of Godfire Church in Bilston, has been jailed for 8 years for using his position to identify West Africans who’re in the U.K illegally and were prepared pay up to £6,500 to stay in the U.K. .
About £153,000 passed through bank accounts run by the pastor under a false name before he was arrested. Clemence Marijeni, 43, was the master forger who created the fake documents that allowed the holder to stay in the UK and claim benefits. He was jailed for ten years.
Olatunji George, 44 – a law student who had completed a module on immigration law – administered the operation and also got 10 years behind bars. He claimed to be paid up to £1,000-a-time to prepare packages of the correct documents and fill in the necessary paperwork.
Jozef Puzo, aged 28, was jailed for five years. He provided the final piece of the jigsaw by earning up to £750-a-time finding women and men from the Czech and Slovakian communities prepared to take part in the scam. .
Both he and George are now on the run after fleeing during their trial but were convicted and sentenced in their absence. Aishatu Ibrahim, 25, has also gone missing but was given three and a half years and another defendant –Idris Agia, 31, was arrested moments before flying out of the country to Nigeria just days ago.
He was jailed for three and a half years. The other five defendants were each jailed for between two and three and a half years. All defendants were found guilty of immigration offences.