Six individuals have been charged with offences in connection with a series of high value commercial mortgage frauds.

Following a hearing today at City of London Magistrates’ Court the case has been sent to Southwark Crown Court for a preliminary hearing on 4 January 2010.

The investigation was referred to the Serious Fraud Office in March 2006 by West Midlands Police following a complaint from the Cheshire Building Society.

It is alleged that the defendants participated in a series of frauds whereby they dishonestly obtained loans from banks or building societies that were secured on six commercial investment properties. Each property was transferred between companies controlled by one of the defendants and his associates at highly inflated prices in a series of back to back transactions. On the basis of the grossly inflated prices, fraudulent valuations and forged leases, the defendants applied for and obtained mortgage advances totalling nearly £50 million. The mortgages were quickly defaulted on and the lenders suffered significant losses.

Ian McGarry, Hardeep Sodhi, Fatema Patwa, Saghir Afzal and Laurence Ferrigan have been charged with offences of conspiracy to obtain a money transfer by deception and dishonestly obtaining a money transfer. Simon Lawrence has been charged with conspiracy to obtain a money transfer by deception.