Two men have been sentenced to 35 years each in jail for murdering a 71-year-old businesswoman in a £4.6million scam to plunder her life savings.
Mohamed El Abboud, 28, and Kusai Al-Jundi, 25, targeted trusting mother-of-two Louise Kam, who had previously owned a catering business with her ex-husband before going into rental properties.
Al-Jundi, a chef from, north-west London, spent months attempting to trick Ms Kam, from Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, into giving him control of two properties she owned in Willesden and East Barnet by offering her millions of pounds.
He also aimed to gain control of her finances by convincing her to sign a Lasting Power of Attorney document.
But the scam came to a head when Ms Kam made it clear she would not sign over the properties.
The pair then lured her to her three-bedroom property in Barnet on 26 July last year. There she was strangled with a hairdryer cord during a “violent struggle”.
Her body was then wrapped up in a duvet, dumped in a wheelie bin and covered with garden rubbish.
The following day the pair moved the bin to a road in Harrow where they lined it up with other bins showing the same number on the front in what the court heard was a plot to “cover up” the pair’s “atrocity”.
El Abboud and Al-Jundi were convicted at the Old Bailey on 19 January after officers untangled their lies and found evidence linking them to her murder.
On Wednesday the pair were both sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum term of 35 years years, by Judge Mark Lucraft KC, who said the murder of Ms Kam was motivated “by greed”.
Phone used to pretend victim was still alive
Ms Kam, from Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, was last seen by a family member near the Spires Shopping Centre in Barnet on 26 July 2021.
She was reported missing to police the following day and an investigation was launched to find her.
Her black BMW was recovered by police on 28 July in Edgware. Her body was discovered on 1 August 2021 in a wheelie bin on Wood End Road, Harrow.
Investigators said the following day Al-Jundi sent Ms Kam’s family and friends messages pretending she was alive and that she had gone on holiday.
On the same day El-Abboud sold Ms Kam’s BMW and bought new clothes with the proceeds.
He also posted a TikTok video of him dancing and gyrating to music in the driveway of her Barnet home.
The judge had told how Al-Jundi had been described as a Walter Mitty character who falsely claimed to be a “person of means” with the backing of a multi-millionaire girlfriend when he set about tricking Ms Kam out of her property.
Having resolved to murder her to get hold of her assets, he promised El-Abboud a share “as a reward for killing her”, the judge said.
Motivated by ‘greed’
In sentencing both to life in prison, with a minimum term of 35 years, Judge Mark Lucraft KC said: “El-Abboud, it might be said that Al-Jundi played the lead role in the long-running defrauding of Louise, but I draw no distinction on the sentence to be passed on the two of you.
“The evidence clearly shows what you did and did willingly and that you, along with Al-Jundi, did what you did out of greed.”
Catherine Gould, prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “This horrific crime is a tale of greed taken to extremes. Al-Jundi and El-Abboud selfishly and brutally ended Louise Kam’s life for their own ends.
“These defendants hatched a plan to kill Louise and profit from her death.”
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In a victim impact statement, Ms Kam’s son Gregory Kam said the family had been left in a state of “disbelief” at what happened to his mother.
He said: “I deeply regret I was not able to do enough at the time to prevent my mother from falling for the lies of his wolf in sheep’s clothing.
“In addition to the initial shocking news of our mother’s disappearance and subsequent news of her murder, I was not only shocked but further angered and sickened to discover defendant one (Al-Jundi) enlisted the help of an accomplice (El-Abboud) to trick, entrap, overpower and murder a pension-age woman in her own home under the guise of what was supposed to be a business deal.”
