POLICE are investigating allegations that the four suspected July 21 bombers collected more than £500,000 in benefits payments in Britain.

The claim was made as the Bank of England moved to freeze financial accounts belonging to the men. Bank officials also disclosed the financial details of the suspects, Ramzi Mohammad, Yasin Hassan Omar, Muktar Said-Ibrahim and Hussain Osman. These showed how the men, all in custody, have used multiple aliases and addresses in recent years.

Mr Ibrahim, is said to have had six aliases. Some are also shown to have claimed several nationalities, ages and national insurance numbers while in Britain. Investigators believe that bogus names were used to make some benefit claims.

Two are also alleged to have obtained asylum using bogus passports and false names and nationalities.

All the addresses registered to the suspects were in Greater London, and each man is known to have had at least one national insurance number.

Mr Mohammed, 23, who has been linked to the Oval Tube attack, is said to have used six addresses in southwest and West London. One is said to be on the Peabody Estate, in North Kensington, where he surrendered to police with Mr Ibrahim last Friday.

Mr Ibrahim, alleged to be the Hackney bus bomber, is believed to have used two dates of birth, six aliases, two national insurance numbers and two addresses — both in the Stoke Newington area of North London. Mr Osman, 27, now fighting extradition from Italy and accused of being the Shepherds Bush attacker, apparently went under five names, variously claimed that he was Eritrean or Somali, and used four addresses in southwest London. Mr Omar, 24, who is linked with the attack on a Tube train near Warren Street, had five aliases and lived in New Southgate.

Police across Europe are understood to be investigating whether any of the suspects or their families are linked to finance networks used by terror groups. Carlo De Stefano, the head of Italy’s counter-terror operations, said that Mr Osman’s brother, Ramzi Hussain, who lives in Rome, has been under surveillance since the attacks in the US on September 11, 2001. He said that Mr Hussain’s souvenir shop on the Via Volturno was being investigated for its links to al-Barakaat, a finance company that is the so-called al-Qaeda banking network.

Channel 4 News said last night that Mr Osman was one of a group of extremists reported to police in 2003 for causing trouble at a mosque in Stockwell, South London. The mosque trustees wrote to police saying that the group had “an agenda to turn this centre into another Finsbury Park mosque . . . problems have now reached a level where police help is urgently needed”.

Toaha Qureshi, a trustee, told the programme that police took no action at the time.

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