Grenfell fraud: Man, 53, jailed after getting £30k in handouts by pretending to be in a relationship with woman who died in fire

A fraudster who claimed he was living with a woman who died in the Grenfell Tower fire has been jailed for four years.

Koffi Kouakou, 53, claimed he was living in the tower and had been in a relationship with a woman who died in the fire, which ripped through the west London tower block in June 2017 leaving 72 people dead.

By claiming to be the woman’s boyfriend, he benefited from £33,321 worth of free hotel or housing accommodation and food, and £500 in emergency cash.

Kouakou, who was moved from the hotel into a council-funded flat, then asked for another £10,000 in emergency cash but was never paid.

Police later found that Jouakou, of Westfield Close, Coleridge Gardens, was not living in the North Kensington tower block and had not been in a relationship with the woman.

When he was arrested in June 2018, police found in his rucksack a newspaper article entitled ‘Pure Greed of Grenfell fraudsters - Liars Handed £102k After Saying They Survived Blaze’ – related to the jailing of Elaine Douglas and Tommy Brooks a week earlier.

Appearing at Isleworth Crown Court on Thursday, Kouakou was sentenced to four years in jail after pleading guilty to two counts of fraud.

Damaris Lakin, of the CPS, said: “Koffi Kouakou took advantage of a national tragedy to access free accommodation at the expense of public funds, and tried to take money donated to charity by members of the public.

“However our prosecution was able to prove that he was lying, including evidence that no-one in the tower recognised him, he was never captured on CCTV entering or leaving the flats, he had never phoned the person he claimed to be living with and his phone had never been used near the tower.”

Kouakou is the 12^th person to be convicted of a Grenfell-related fraud.

Just last month, a drug dealer who received almost £87,000 in funds after falsely claiming he lived in the tower was jailed for six years.

Yonatan Eyob, 26, was put up in a hotel and given a food allowance and pre-paid cards. Drugs, including MDMA and cocaine, and seven mobile phones were found in his hotel room.