Two jailed for €84.5m mobile phone VAT fraud

TWO men have been jailed for a €84.5 million VAT fraud which was operated through an Irish company.

The scam, which ran from September 2000 to July 2001, involved buying mobile phones from fictitious British companies and then selling them to other mobile phone brokers with the proceeds going to Globalring Ireland Ltd, which was based in Cork.

Used car dealer Daniel Charles Jones, aged 47, from Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, and haulage company boss Jeffrey Woolley, 55, from Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, were both jailed for defrauding British Revenue and Customs of £58m (€84.5m).