Customs welcome jailing of £38m VAT fraudsters

BRITISH Customs and Excise investigators last night welcomed the jailing of two businessmen who masterminded a £38m VAT fraud

Company director Raymond Woolley, 49, and computer consultant Robert Garner, 35, both from Staffordshire, dodged tax with businesses they set up in Spain, the Irish Republic and their home county.

Woolley, of Ash Bank Road, Werrington, Stoke-on-Trent, was sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment in December last year, while Garner, of Ford Drive, Yarnfield, Stone, was last month sentenced to seven years and three months.

Reporting restrictions meant details of the case could not be revealed until yesterday.

One of the firms involved in the scam amassed a VAT debt of £24,154,931 in just three months between August and November 2000.

The two men were involved in an increasingly common swindle in the EU which involves selling mobile phones to buyers in member states for less than the price paid to the original seller but inclusive of VAT. They are usually sold back to the original exporter to create a “carousel” effect with the aim of “skimming off” the huge VAT claims generated and at the same time getting rid of the phones.

Customs & Excise says the scam cost the UK Exchequer between £1.7 billion and £2.75 billion in stolen VAT in 2001-2002.

Euan Stewart, regional manager of Customs & Excise Investigation Central, said: “These fraudsters planned to skim off huge and ever-increasing amounts of VAT on their purchases whilst never paying a penny of VAT on their sales.”

Woolley, who had been living in Marbella, Spain, before he was arrested, was found guilty of conspiracy to cheat the public revenue by a jury following a trial at Birmingham Crown Court.

He subsequently pleaded guilty to two charges of money laundering and was sentenced on December 20.

Garner had pleaded guilty to the charge of cheating the public revenue in September last year and was sentenced at the same court on Jan. 24.