Cheat: Seema Bassi, 49, claimed she was a jobless single mother to pocket handouts for more than a decade

A benefits fraudster has been jailed after fleecing the taxpayer out of nearly £74,000 while running a £2.6million property empire.

Seema Bassi, 49, claimed she was a jobless single mother to pocket handouts for more than a decade.

But she was secretly amassing a property portfolio across Kent raking in a fortune from tenants, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.

Bassi owned 26 homes worth a total of £2.6million, providing her with about £150,000 in rent a year.

She bought her first property in 1994 and started claiming benefits three years later.

Her portfolio included 14 flats and four houses in Gravesend, a house in Canterbury, three flats in Herne Bay, a two-bedroom terrace in Greenhithe, and a house in Richmond Street, Hartlepool, Cleveland.

Some of the properties were leased to Gravesham Council in Kent as sheltered housing for asylum seekers, the court heard.

Her fraud was uncovered after Gravesham Council started investigating her brother for failing to pay council tax in 2012.

The paper trail led investigators to contact Redbridge Council for more details about Bassi when they learned she had purchased 18 houses from her brother.

Stacks of documents were seized from Bassi's home in Ilford, including bank statements and tenancy agreements.

It was discovered she had told mortgage lenders she earned £69,200 annually working for a property firm, but was still telling the council she was unemployed.

In total the mother-of-one pocketed £67,819 in housing benefits and £6,118 council tax benefits.

When questioned by police she first said the properties were held in trust for different members of her extended family, although no evidence was found to prove that such a trust existed.

She then claimed the 18 properties that had previously belonged to her broth er had been put in her name because he was unwell and could no longer managed them.

Benefits cheat Seema Bassi owned 26 homes, including one in Canterbury (pictured) in Kent. At the same time as running the property portfolio she was pocketing handouts claiming to be a jobless single mother

Bassi denied but was convicted of five counts of fraud after a trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court, pictured, earlier this year

Bassi maintained she didn't profit financially from any of the homes.

It emerged Bassi set up a new property firm called Overcliffe Residents Company last year.

Bassi, of Ilford, Essex, denied but was convicted of five counts of fraud after a trial earlier this year.