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Missing VAT trader ordered to repay £14m

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9th Sep 2013
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A fraudster who took part in a £250m VAT fraud has been ordered to repay criminal profits of £14m or face a further 10 years in jail.

Nasir Khan, 41, was jailed for nine years in 2011 for laundering his share of the cash from the fraud.

Fifteen others were also jailed for the missing trader fraud, which took place over a period of three years. Khan was also disqualified from being a company director for a decade.

The gang attempted to claim VAT on the import and export of mobile phones to in what HMRC called one of the UK’s largest ever VAT missing trader frauds.

In an investigation lasting 10 years HMRC used information analysis to track transaction chains and the fradulent contracts between the defendants, leading to a series of co-ordinated arrests and data seizures.

The information identified bank accounts in Asia to which  money was transferred from the UK and EU.

Khan owned mobile phone accessory company The Accessory People, based in Chessington, but in 2001 began fraudulent wholesale trade in mobile phones.

This business boosted the firm's turnover from £13m in 2002 to £219m in 2003.

According to assistant director of criminal investigation for HMRC Robert Alder, Khan enjoyed a “playboy lifestyle” and invested his share of the criminal proceeds in a portfolio of luxury rental apartments in London, Marbella and Gibraltar.

His fleet of luxury cars included a Bentley, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche and more than a dozen Mercedes with personalised number plates, all of which have since been restrained.

The confiscation order at Southwark Crown Court ordered Khan to repay the £14m or face a further 10 years in prison, on top of his originally sentenced nine.

•In a separate case at Falkirk Sherrif Court, Dominic Haseltine, 40, from Winchester Drive in Denny was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading to attempting to steal £57,000 in fraudulent VAT repayments by faking invoices. The fraud involved two companies for which he the sole director, Indalo Digital UK, registered in Polmont and HD Video Europe Ltd, registered in West Bromwich. David Odd, Assistant Director of Criminal Investigation for HMRC in Scotland, commented: "He now has to pay a very high price for his criminal activities. Tax fraud is a serious offence and is treated as such by the justice system."

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