The FCA has launched criminal action against an unauthorised mortgage adviser and an accountant who it accuses of working together to create fake proof of income to help clients qualify for home loans.

The regulator has started criminal proceedings against Larry Barreto who is alleged to have carried out regulated activities through an unauthorised financial advice business called Barreto and Partners in Nottingham.

Alongside Barreto, the FCA is taking action against Tassib Hussain, of Keystone Chartered Accountants, accusing the pair of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation.

The charges relate to a series of mortgage applications made between January 2015 and March 2018. 

The FCA alleges that, in cases where Barreto believed his clients had insufficient income to secure the mortgage they required, he would charge the client a fee which he would then pay in cash to Hussain.

It says the accountant would then create false self-employment and employment documentation to support their mortgage applications. 

The total value of the mortgages applied for was around £3.8m.

Barreto had already been banned from carrying out regulated financial activities, yet the FCA accuses him of continuing to arrange regulated mortgage contracts between June 2014 and March 2018. 

Larry Barreto, 66, and Tassib Hussain, 41, appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court yesterday.

The case was sent to Southwark Crown Court for a Plea and Trial Preparation Hearing on May 19.

Fraud is punishable by a fine and/or up to 10 years in jail. 

Unauthorised business is punishable by a fine and/or up to two years in prison.