From various parts of the article "More than 20 people have been sentenced to a total of 133 years", "Three...were sentenced...to a total of 19 years", "12 people [got] 75 years", "seven men...were handed down prison terms of 39 years".

If we can figure what sentences individual crims got do we get a T-shirt? (I know, I know, too many degrees of freedom)

Any judge with a sense of humour would've handed out the jail terms and then said "plus an extra 17.5% for VAT"

I think the point is that the sentences sound worse if you total them up. But if you do the math (and I agree that an average sentence is about all you can get) you come up with gross of £1,037,594 per year in the slammer, which doesn't seem too bad. This is of course assuming they caught all the perps involved and discovered all the crimes, neither of which is very likely...

It is kind of funny to rate the crime by total prison time, but then maybe the Reg editors are just that little bit more knowledgeable on this subject than us...

Each person got around six and a half years in prison, also each person gained on average around six and a half million quid. Not bad, eh?

Mine's the camelhair coat with the big cheque book in the pocket.

Just wondering.

A. Coward 18/01/74

Isn't there now a law whereby the rozzers can take back the ill-gotten gains of major criminals? Presumably that's a long-drawn out legal process which starts when the perps get sentenced.

A million quid per year inside isn't bad, but only if you can hang on to it.

Don't forget that part of a criminal sentence is that the crooks will not gain from their crime.

So from the day the sentence was passed to the day they die, any money they try to spend will be under close watch by various Government depts.

"This was not some kind of victimless crime, but organised fraud on a massive scale perpetrated by criminals all bent on making fast and easy profits at the expense of the British taxpayer,"

Sounds like any IT scheme implemented by the UK gov.

Weren´t for the headline, it would have fooled me.

"...organised fraud on a massive scale perpetrated by criminals all bent on making fast and easy profits at the expense of the British taxpayer..."

so, completely unlike the taxman himself; who takes roughly a fifth of every penny you earn, adds roughly a fifth onto almost everything you buy - and threatens you with incarceration if you don't cough up

They thought they were the only ones to rip off the tax payer at this level!

The biggest fraudster at British taxpayers expense?

Difficult question which will take all of 1/2 a second to think about and then only that long in framing the answer, which is? GovUK

surely MPs claiming allowances for large high quality housing/furnishing

a police force that has very clearly been neutered

selling of public bullion at record low prices (best chancellor evah?)

closure of hospitals

privatisation and subsequent collapse of public services

and multi billion dollar bailouts for people living champagne/porsche lifestyles at the expense of the hard working public

propping up of a system which encourages the sale of houses at prices not consistent with salaries and lending above affordable rates during a period of unsustainably low interest

or is it me?

"This was not some kind of victimless crime, but organised fraud on a massive scale perpetrated by criminals all bent on making fast and easy profits at the expense of the British taxpayer," said HMRC director of operations, criminal investigations, Chris Harrison"

So a bit like our banking system then?

This was not some kind of victimless crime, but organised fraud on a massive scale perpetrated by criminals all bent on making fast and easy profits at the expense of the British taxpayer,"

You could be talking about the criminals but you could equally be talking about the VAT and Tax man.

Make one small and easy-to-make mistake and they won't settle for just blood from the stone, they also want your organs plus your balls over a coal fire.

Tombstone because it may be the only place left to escape the Criminal AND Government greed.