A member of an organised gang who attempted to claim £10.2 million in tax credits using stolen identities has been jailed.

Oluwatobi Odeyemi, known as Emmanuel, 34, of Gravesend, Kent was said to be a key facilitator in the criminal operation, managing stolen data used to make false tax credits claims - and was jailed for three and a half years at the Central Criminal Court on Thursday after pleading guilty last month.

The court heard he had received the data from sister-in-law Adedamola Oyebode, 30, of Lewisham, who was also sentenced on Thursday - given a two year suspended sentence and 160 hours of unpaid community work, having pleaded guilty in December 2016.

Oyebode had formerly worked as an events and marketing assistant for the Civil Service Sports Council (CSSC), and was found to have accessed the CSSC’s password protected membership system and stole personal details of 10,300 members in 2009 - before passing them on to Odeyemi.

Odeyemi’s friend, Kayode Sanni, 38, of Leeds, ensured the stolen data was used to apply for tax credits, and recruited and managed a friend, Chantelle Gumbs, 34, also of Leeds.

Her job was to request the tax credits application packs from HMRC used to make fraudulent tax credits claims. The gang completed the forms, adding details of bank accounts that had been set up to commit the fraud, and returned them to HMRC.

Sanni was found guilty of his role in the conspiracy last month, and was jailed for five years and three months on Thursday, while Gumbs was sentenced to 15 months, suspended for two years, having pleaded guilty in 2015.

Investigators believe the fraudsters conspired with two others who are on-the-run, and are appealing for information on their whereabouts. Emmanuel Odeyemi’s brother Oluwagbenga Odeyemi, known as Stephen, 39, and Stephen’s wife Oluwatumininu Banjo, 40, also known as Tumi, both used to live in Dagenham and are now thought to be in Nigeria.

Simon York, Director of HMRC's Fraud Investigation Service, said: "These criminals launched an organised attack on the tax credits system, a system designed to help some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

"Thanks to the experience of HMRC's officers, the effectiveness of our counter-fraud checks, and an extremely complex criminal investigation, the fraud was stopped and HMRC prevented £8 million of false claims being paid to the criminals.

"We will continue to tackle those committing tax credits fraud and ask anyone who has information about the two Nigerian citizens who may be connected with this fraud to call the HMRC Fraud Hotline on 0800 788 887."

The scam was uncovered in late 2009 by HMRC’s identity fraud and risk teams concerned about the volume of new claims for civil servants, predominately for working tax credits.

Their initial enquiries also highlighted potential sources of a data leak. HMRC began a criminal investigation in April 2010 and through detailed forensic analysis, investigators uncovered the fraudsters, pieced together the scam, and identified the extent of the CSSC data loss.