Mortgage brokers Matthew Robinson, 42, and 58-year-old Nicholas Pomroy plotted with pilot Mark Entwistle, 47, and solicitor Jonathan Gilbert, 48, to take out multiple bogus mortgages on strangers’ homes.

The four men were jailed for a combined total of 34 years after a 26-week trial at Southwark Crown Court earlier this year.

The men conned lenders by pretending to buy homes of innocent householders who were unaware their properties were being used in the scam, some of which lost their homes.

Willmett Solicitors in Maidenhead, Berkshire, where Gilbert was a partner, went bust, with the loss of 70 jobs as a result of the conspiracy.

Southwark Crown Court heard Entwistle, the ring leader in the fraud and a pilot for Virgin Airways, lived the high life with gambling trips to Las Vegas and bought himself a motor boat to cruise the Thames. Here is a great reporting on how one can gamble from anywhere they are with the help of online casinos.

According to the Daily Mail Judge Martin Beddoe called him “arrogant and greedy, brazen to the last with no expression of remorse”.

The judge told him: “This trial has been nothing but another gamble for you but the odds have proved to be too long this time.

“Between 2005 and 2009 a substantial and sophisticated fraud was committed against banks and other lenders, some 14 of them or so.

“The fraud was for the benefit of you, Mark Entwistle, orchestrated by you and Jonathan Gilbert and assisted in some ways by Mr Robinson and Mr Pomroy.”

The court heard Entwistle and Gilbert fleeced RBS and Northern Rock out of more than £6m, using variations on the name Rigby Group to secure illegal mortgages between 2005 and 2009.
At first the money was genuinely used to redevelop property and sell it on at a profit, said prosecutor Michael Shorrock QC.

“As time went by, however, he began to raise finance by fraud,” said Shorrock.

“The loan applications would state that loan funds were to be used to refinance or purchase or develop a particular property.”

When mortgages were approved, Gilbert did not tell the Land Registry about other mortgages on the property, tricking lenders into thinking they had more legal rights and collateral than they did

In other cases the gang took out mortgages on properties already owned by unconnected people, who had no idea of the loan until the lender told them payments had been missed.

One family had to move out of their £1.5m home for three years after building society bosses arrived to repossess it.

The five-year police investigation began in July 2009 when Willmett Solicitors reported irregularities.

Entwistle worked with Gilbert to obtain illegal mortgages on a number of properties and sites between 2005 and 2009. Robinson and Pomroy processed the false applications, the court was told.

In one case the group managed to take out five mortgages on a single property.
Entwistle was sentenced in July, but the fraud can only be reported now after a court order was amended.

Two other defendants – Philip Barker, 47, of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, and Shon Williams, 48, of East Grinstead, West Sussex – were cleared of all counts after the trial.

Entwistle was jailed for 14 years, Gilbert 12 years, Robinson five years and Pomroy three years.