Mother and daughter property fraud pair jailed

A mother and daughter team who helped a Dubai-based gang make a false £1.2 million application for a bridging loan by taking the identity of a deceased Kensington landlady have been jailed for property fraud. 31-year-old Laylah De Cruz (pictured) is to serve a five-year sentence and 62-year-old mother Dianne Moorcroft a three year term following a trial at Southwark Crown Court, during which the pair denied the fraud. The two were part of a gang, the rest of whom are still being sought, who identified a rental property belonging to a deceased landlady and then rented it using false papers. After this, with the help of her daughter, Moorcroft changed her name by Deed Poll to the landlady’s name. She later put the property on Eagle Place in Kensington on the market and, posing as the millionaire but actually deceased owner of the property, subsequently applied for a bridging loan of £1.2 million, which she was granted. The funds were then transferred to Dubai and have since not been traced. Moorcroft was arrested at her Blackpool home in February 2015 while De Cruz was arrested on her return from Dubai, where she lived as an expat, in May 2016. Suspicious…