London, June 20 (ANI): Three Indian-origin British VAT fraudsters who cheated a taxpayer out of 39 million pounds in record 69 days, have been jailed for a total of 35 years.
In a first case of its kind, mastermind Sandeep Singh Dosanjh, 30, along with his cronies, Ranjot Singh Chahal, 35, and Navdeep Singh Gill, 31, used the proceeds of his carbon trading VAT scam on a Rolls Royce and a 1 million pound home in upmarket Bayswater, West London.
According to the Daily Mail, Dosanjh, of Kensington, was jailed for 15 years, Gill, of Berkshire, 11 years and Chahal, of Middlesex, for nine years.
The swindler and his two friends made millions running a series of bogus companies importing high-value carbon credits free of VAT into the UK.he gang exploited UK VAT laws and sold these carbon credits on to legitimate companies, charging VAT, which was never paid back to the government.
The bogus importing companies were then dissolved and the credits were sold on again between three further 'buffer' companies, also run by the gang, before finally being sold on to legitimate companies so the trading chain appeared legal.
The VAT charged by the 'missing trader' was then shared out between the gang.
The trades were made in a matter of minutes via a computer system, and the stolen VAT was transferred to offshore bank accounts in the United Arab Emirates to 'clean' the stolen cash, which the gang then spent.
All three were convicted of conspiring to cheat the public revenue between September 2008 and July 2009 after a 14-week trial, which ended last week. (ANI)
