Three fraudsters who used the names of more than 200 dead children to launder profits from an attempted £1m VAT fraud have been jailed for more than 16 years . Saheed Oyeneye , 35 , Rasaq Omotunde , 38 , and Oluwakemi Adesaogun , 38 , all from south east London , set up hundreds of bogus online HMRC accounts to ‘ get rich quick ’ off the public purse . The Nigerian-born adopted false identities of hundreds of unsuspecting victims , mirroring the tactic employed by the assassin in The Day of the Jackal , as part of his plot to shoot French president Charles de Gaulle . Rasaq Omotunde , 38 ( left ) and Saheed Oyeneye , 35 , ( right ) , both from south east London , were part of a fraud gang who used the names of more than 200 children to launder profits from an attempted VAT fraud . In a scenario similar to that of the Frederick Forsyth novel , the trio men stole the identities of more than 200 dead British babies , before using their names to bombard the government with tax repayment applications . They also adopted the identities of sports personalities , including cricketers and rugby union stars , by scouring the internet for their personal details and cobbling together a fake profile . The three men also targeted thousands of members of the public as they attempted to swindle £1m , Southwark Crown Court was told . In total , the gang managed to pocket around £250,000 , which was banked across hundreds of accounts which had been set up under false names . But the trio were rumbled early on by HMRC and did not pay out more than three-quarters of the money . When their homes were searched , investigators discovered the personal details of more than 200 dead children were stored on computers , the court heard . At the peak of the fraud , the thieves were using more than 20 internet cafes to register up to 301 new accounts a day . Pictured : Oluwakemi Adesaogun . At the peak of the fraud , the thieves were using more than 20 internet cafes to register up to 301 new accounts a day . Oluwakemi Adesaogun , 38 , from Woolwich , was the third member of the group . Oyeneye , from Hither Green , Omotunde , from Sydenham and Adesaogun , from Woolwich , all pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud . Today , Judge Stephen Robbins jailed Oyeneye for five and a half years , Omotunde for six years and Adesaogun for five years . After the sentencing , Christopher Gill , Assistant Director , Criminal Investigation , HMRC , said : ‘ This trio thought they were running a high-tech and sophisticated fraud using a series of addresses and internet cafes to set up accounts using stolen data . ‘ They bombarded the system with applications for tax repayments from these fake accounts , in the hope of getting rich quick . ‘ These fraudsters thought the anonymity of the internet would protect them . ' He added : 'This case demonstrates that we can and will track down and prosecute those who attack our online systems . ‘ This was nothing but a common repayment fraud attempt which our systems quickly identified as bogus . HMRC shuts down the vast majority of bogus repayment applications. ’ The trio will face confiscation proceedings at a later date but most of the money has already vanished . The book 's protagonist - the Jackal - trawls three village graveyards looking for the headstone of a baby boy who , had he not died , would have been about the same age as the assassin . Taking the details of the late Alexander James Quentin Duggan to the Central Registry of Births , Marriages and Deaths , the Jackal buys a copy of the deceased 's birth certificate - all the proof he needs to successfully apply for a passport .
Trio , from south east London , set up hundreds of bogus HMRC accounts . They then filed fake tax repayment applications online under false names . They used names of cricketers and rugby union stars to swindle £250,000 . Similar tactic was employed by the assassin in thriller Day of the Jackal . Rasaq Omotunde , 35 , Oyebanji Oyeneye , 38 , and Oluwakemi Adesaogun , 38 , jailed .