'Zero-tolerance' police officer faces jail after being convicted of £46,000 insurance and mortgage scam

Hypocritical: Police Inspector Mohammed Razaq may himself face jail after the fraud conviction

A senior police officer who spearheaded a ‘zero tolerance’ crime clampdown is facing jail after being convicted of a £46,000 insurance and mortgage scam.
Mohammed Razaq was in charge of a neighbourhood police team in Bolton, Greater Manchester, until he was arrested and his office was raided by police.
Disgraced Inspector Razaq, 53, has been found guilty of a fraud involving four rental properties he owned.
Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester heard that Razaq created a false damage report document, purporting to be from a genuine company, and used it as evidence for a bogus insurance claim.
He then made a series of claims for damage on properties that he owned and a false mortgage application.
Insp Razaq, who owned four homes and was trying to buy a fifth property in Bolton, used several different identities in a bid to cover his tracks.
Robert Hall, prosecuting, said that his ambition was part of his downfall.
He said: ‘He was undoubtedly ambitious in his approach to life and his rise to inspector.
‘The Crown says that his ambition for status and wealth is what fuelled this dishonesty.’
The court heard that in 2008 he ‘could not have wanted for anything else’.

He had a wife and three children in their teens or early 20s and Mr Hall said Razaq was ‘not short of a bob or two’.
‘The effect of this financial demand on Mohammed Razaq was that his bank account, that was in good credit, started to go down in balance to where money was needed to keep them in the black,’ Mr Hall told the jury.
Razaq was found guilty of six counts of fraud and three counts of converting criminal property and will be sentenced next month.

Bad landlord: One of the Salford houses owned by Mohammed Razaq where neighbours complained about anti-social behaviour from the tenants

His dishonesty started in 2008 when he had a water leak at his home and a surveyor said the cost of the damage was about £1,200.
Razaq disputed this and submitted two documents from companies showing that the damage cost more than £7,000. The insurance company paid out £7,685.
The court heard that there was water damage at another house he owned, which prompted a fire service call-out. Insp Razaq submitted an insurance claim for £20,000 but it was rejected.
He changed his insurance company on his home in Bradford Road and, in 2010, he claimed again for water damage, having not declared a previous claim to the company. The prosecution says this damage was the same damage that he had claimed for previously, but had not been repaired. He was paid £6,300.

Police Inspector Mohammed Razaq has worked for Greater Manchester police for more than 30 years before the fraud was uncovered

The court heard he also applied for a £12,000 mortgage for home improvements on an address in Bradford Street, on the basis that he lived there, but in reality it was rented out. The money was transferred to him in June, 2010.
In March 2011, the court heard, Razaq lied about which house he lived in when applying for a mortgage for another property claiming he was going to more there.
But within two weeks of the mortgage being granted he called an insurance company for a quote to insure the building as a rental property.
Razaq had more than 33 years policing experience, including spells in CID, Tactical Aid, a firearms unit and various community cohesion projects.
During the 1980s, he helped to police the Toxteth riots, and was part of the team which escorted the Moors Murderer Myra Hindley back to the Saddleworth moors to identify the location of victims' bodies.
He was eventually put in charge of policing the Johnson Fold estate in Bolton where he introduced extra high visibility police patrols and more CCTV surveillance.
Groups of youths were regularly stopped and asked to account for what they were doing.
Last year anti-social behaviour order laws, which Insp Razaq often used to deal with thuggery on his beat, were used to close down the house he owned in Higher Broughton, near Salford after complaints it was a blackspot for late night parties, drug taking and violence. All the tenants were moved out and the windows were boarded-up.
Speaking after the court case yesterday Elisa Hopley, Senior Crown Prosecutor from the CPS North West Complex Casework Unit said: ‘Mohammed Razaq embarked upon a prolonged period of dishonesty, breaching the trust that was placed in him as a serving Inspector for Greater Manchester Police.
‘The public are entitled to expect the highest standards from police officers and whilst cases where police officers are charged with criminal offences are rare, today's conviction shows that they are not above the laws they are expected to uphold.’

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