HMRC swoops on carousel fraud suspects
Premises in London, Manchester and Glasgow raided at dawn by 100 police officers
HM Revenue & Customs has detained 22 people in connection with carousel
fraud in dawn swoops on premises across the country today.
Some 60 search warrants were issued, and 100 police officers Strathclyde
Police, Greater Manchester Police and the Metropolitan Police Service made
arrests in London, Manchester and Glasgow.
The investigation was co-ordinated by HMRC in Scotland, in consultation with
the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, and involved 400 criminal
investigators.
Gordon Miller, deputy director of the HMRC investigation, said of the
operation: ‘Today’s operation, the biggest ever undertaken by HMRC, is part of a
large-scale, international criminal investigation into frauds that may run to
hundreds of millions of pounds. We are committed to tackling carousel fraud and
to showing the criminals behind it, wherever they operate in the world, that
there are no safe havens.’
HMRC has been attempting to combat MTIC fraud by identifying bogus businesses
and refusing to register them for VAT purposes; identifying and stopping fraud
at the earliest opportunity – by operating close controls on suspect businesses;
and working with UK agencies and authorities abroad to identify and target
suspect activity, thereby disrupting the fraud at all points in the supply
chain.
So far this year HMRC has secured 10 criminal convictions resulting in
combined sentences of nearly 70 years.