Sikh elder who had £150,000 in a secret Indian bank account

Sikh elder who had £150,000 in a secret Indian bank account is handed a curfew after pretending his family were poor to claim £26,000 in pension credits

A Sikh elder who stashed away £150,000 in a secret Indian bank account while claiming thousands of pounds in pension credit has been spared jail.

Harcharan Singh Bola, 65, pocketed more than £26,000 over two years after lying about his family's wealth. 

The trickster, from Stenson Fields, Derby, told the Department of Work and Pensions in 2014 that he only had £1,500 in a UK joint account he shared with his wife.

But his fraud was uncovered after investigators were tipped-off that he was receiving interest from one of four bank accounts he held in his home country.

But his fraud was uncovered after investigators were tipped-off that he was receiving interest from one of four bank accounts he held in his home country.

They were shocked to discover he had £150,375 cash in the overseas account.

However, the slippery pensioner avoided jail after a hearing at Derby Crown Court, where he was handed a 24-week sentence suspended for a year, as well as a 12-week curfew.

Judge Peter Cooke told him: 'This claim was fraudulent from the outset because you knew you had control of a bank account in India that held a substantial amount of money and you knew that a percentage of that was coming your way.

'At the age of 65 having your liberty restrained shows the disapproval those of us who pay our taxes, and who you chose to steal from, have for your offending.'

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