Conning couple must pay back £200,000
A couple serving prison sentences for a multi-million pound tax fraud have been ordered to pay back more than £200,000 or face a further 30 months behind bars.
Satpal Singh Mahal, 49, from Walsall, was ordered to pay back £100,000 and chiropodist Louise Brown, 54, from Plymouth, £100,684.43.
The couple, who used bogus identities to set up fake companies to steal more than £2.3m in VAT, are currently serving 10 years in jail.
The pair were found to have used fake names and stolen identities to set up the companies and bank accounts online.
They claimed that each of the seven companies sold UK media advertising to overseas clients but the investigation found that none of the companies actually traded and the couple had used them solely to fraudulently claim VAT repayments on fabricated expenses.
Zoe Ellerbeck, assistant director, fraud investigation services at HMRC, said: “We are determined to recover stolen tax from criminals who deprive the UK of vital funds. HMRC has disrupted an illegal money making scheme – this couple thought they had created a sophisticated fraud and that they could hide what they were doing, but they are now paying the price with prison sentences.
“Mahal and Brown thought they were above the law but they were wrong, and this confiscation order shows that we don’t stop once someone has been jailed. We will go further to make sure we recover the proceeds of crime to ensure that crime doesn’t pay.”
As well as serving out their prison sentences, both Mahal and Brown have been banned from being a company director.
They faced a confiscation hearing at Blackfriars Crown Court on 5 July 2017 and were ordered to pay the amount owing within three months or each face a further 15 months in prison.
