A man from Worsley has been given a stark choice to either pay over quarter of a million pounds in unpaid VAT or face a three-year jail sentence.
Lee Jonathan Hart, 40, of Leigh Road in Worsley, was one of nine gang members busted by a high-profile HRMC investigation codenamed Operation Vaulter.
The group stole £20 million in a vast mobile phone VAT fraud before laundering their profits through bank accounts in Andorra, Dubai, Hong Kong, USA, Switzerland, Portugal and the UK.
The gang claimed to be trading in the importation and sale of mobile phones, but investigators showed that this complex web of transactions was a sham and in some cases the mobile phones didn’t exist – the gang had simply fabricated their business in order to submit VAT repayment claims.
The investigation led to four criminal trials between 2012 and 2014.
Since sentencing, the gang members who profited from the fraud have appeared before His Honour Judge Campbell to face individual confiscation orders.
Mr Hart was given the choice to repay £350,000 of profit from the scam within six months, or face a default prison sentence of three years.
Hart’s co-conspirators have been ordered to repay a total of over £2 million of ill-gotten gains.
The latest member of the gang to be handed a confiscation order is 69-year-old Albert Amritanand from Scotland, who must pay £502,214 or face a further five years in prison.
Kevin Newe, Assistant Director, Criminal Investigation, HMRC, said: “Confiscation orders totalling £2.3 million have already been made in this case, and further proceedings are ongoing.
“We are determined that crime gangs such as this one, should be prosecuted and then made to repay their criminal gain.”
As part of the investigation HMRC restrained assets and £300,000 in cash as part of the recovery of the stolen tax.
