Nine charged with massive VAT fraud

£250m scam

By John Oates • Get more from this author

Posted in IT Channel, 7th February 2007 13:14 GMT

Following raids and ten arrests yesterday, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs is charging nine people with cheating the public revenue.

Three people are also being charged with money laundering offences.

The nine are: Curtis Laurent (49) of Cardiff, Marcus Hughes (36) of Uttoxeter, Keith Bennett(46) of Beaconsfield, Hashib Apabhai (45) of Bedworth, Mohammed Novsarka (46) of Warwickshire, Peter Ebbrell (56) of Coventry, Keith Ponder (56) of Beaconsfield, Amir Naghibossadat (36) of London, and Sampson Goldstone (31) of Cheshire.

Apabhai, Novsarka, and Goldstone were also charged with money laundering offences. A 37-year-old woman was also arrested late yesterday.

The arrests yesterday followed the largest ever Customs action back in 2003 when 92 addresses in the UK and Spain were raided and 42 people arrested. The raids resulted in the collection of half a million pages of documents and 28 terabytes of information from computers. ®

Free whitepaper – Exchange 2007 risks and mitigation strategies