Fraudsters drained elderly woman's life savings - and then targeted her brother

DEAD MAN'S THUMBPRINT WAS TAKEN TO FORGE HIS WILL

- MARTIN NAYLOR

A FAMILY of cruel fraudsters took over the bank account of a woman in her 80s and stole hundreds of thousands of pounds from her and her brother.

Nottingham Crown Court heard how husband and wife Ahmed Shah and Nadia Ishfaq Shah, and Nadia’s daughter Aysha Ishfaq Shah, first tricked the victim into handing over her bank card.

They withdrew large amounts of her cash to spend on themselves before moving on to target the woman’s brother, who was in his 70s and also lived alone. When the man died in 2019 the will submitted to probate left his entire estate to his sister and Aysha Ishfaq Shah.

A police investigation discovered this document was a forgery and the three offenders had received £411,836.98 in total from the two victims, who have both now died.

They used a thumbprint from the man on the will - which can only have been obtained when they visited his body in a funeral home.

Detective Constable Stephanie Wood, of the force’s money laundering team, said: "Both our victims were ideal targets to be exploited and that is exactly what the Shah family did.

“The Shahs pretended to be friends of the woman while systematically stripping away her life savings and going on to target her brother.