Fake doctor admits £1.5m fraud: [-- the funny thing is, this guy's behavior isn'

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Mon, 17 Jan 2005 18:51:50 -0500

 

 

[sSRI-Research] Fake doctor admits £1.5m fraud

 

 

[-- the funny thing is, this guy's behavior isn't much different from

the licensed md's...]

 

 

 

Fake doctor admits £1.5m fraud

 

http://society.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5105482-105965,00.html

 

Press Association

Monday January 17, 2005

 

SocietyGuardian.co.uk

 

A bogus doctor was behind bars today after admitting he conned more

than £1.5m from the government, charities and unsuspecting patients.

Barian Baluchi, of Nightingale Road, Hampton, south west-London,

admitted a total of 30 charges just minutes before his trial was due

to start today at London's Middlesex Guildhall crown court.

 

The offences, committed between December 1998 and August 2003, include

12 of obtaining a money transfer by deception, three of doing an act

intended to pervert the course of public justice, two of procuring a

registration by making false declarations, and one of supplying false

and misleading information to the Charity Commission.

 

Baluchi, 43, also admitted a string of other offences involving

perjury, other deception charges, causing actual bodily harm,

administering a medicinal product, possessing a class A drug, and

having class B drugs with intent to supply.

 

Using fictitious qualifications, he set himself up as an expert

counsellor, neuro-psychiatrist, plastic surgeon and even a professor

who had supposedly trained at Harvard and Oxford and lectured on both

sides of the Atlantic.

 

The former taxi driver and waiter, who also faked his graduation

photograph at Imperial College, London, used numerous pseudonyms,

stole other people's identities and repeatedly gave evidence in court.

 

One case he was involved in saw a sex attacker jailed for life at

Birmingham crown court in 2003. In addition he frequently gave expert

testimony to the Immigration Appeals Tribunal and prepared hundreds of

often critical reports about the mental trauma asylum seekers would

suffer if they were sent home.

 

Another man was prescribed an antidepressant for neck pain while a

third was left in agony for a month after paying a fortune to have his

twisted spine manipulated under anaesthetic.

 

Over the years the twice married father of two amassed a fortune and

moved his Kimia clinic to a prestigious central London address, bought

a luxury £670,000 five bedroom house and fast cars and sent his

daughter to private school.

 

By the time he was arrested nearly 18 months ago, the man whose

long-running deception saw him change his name and date of birth no

less than 20 times, was styling himself " Professor Barian Samuel

Baluchi MB ChB MSc PhD consultant psychiatrist and neuro-psychiatrist " .

 

Judge Henry Blacksell remanded him in custody until sentencing on

January 26.

 

SocietyGuardian.co.uk © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005