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Mbolokele Nsimba has been struck off the solicitor’s roll and ordered to pay £33,200 in costs after “consciously closing his eyes” to the activities of people he knew were fraudsters aiding them in completing £5.74m in conveyancing fraud.
Mr Nsimba agreed to buy a law firm which was “purchased from the outset as a vehicle for fraud” aiding criminals in their malicious acts.
At the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT), it was said that Mr Nsimba was “motivated by the lure of substantial personal financial gain” after he admitted to transferring £5.74m to third parties that he received as part of conveyancing transactions.
Mr Nsimba, an immigration solicitor, who had no experience of conveyancing admitted all of the allegations made against him by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), except one. He disputed the fact that he’d been dishonest.
Mr Nsimba originally ran his own immigration solicitor firm from 2016-2018. However, in 2017 he made an agreement with ‘Ms CD’ to purchase another law firm called Cadem Hope Limited. Upon purchasing the firm for £10,000 Mr Nsimba became manager and director of the firm.
After becoming suspicious of multiple transactions in which she suspected attempted fraud had taken place, Ms CD left the firm and informed the SRA. She believed that the firm’s seller clients were not the genuine owners of the properties they were purporting to sell.
In this instance, the buyers received their money back. Following the departure of Ms CD further ‘concerning’ transactions occurred.
During the SRA’s investigation they found that 10 conveyancing transactions took place. An “unidentifiable receipt” was also recovered which was to the tune of £487,000. All of these funds were transferred to third party bank accounts; however, a £20,500 balance was left in the firm’s account.