From: The Telegraph
HM Revenue and Customs today published the names and photographs of 2012’s top tax cheats in a move designed to shame tax-dodgers.
Counterfeit cigarettes
Sentenced in 2012: Phillip William Robinson, Vincent Waller, Phillip William Hall, Christopher John Burns and Andrius Kochanauskas – 13 years 1 month
Background: A criminal gang which set up a factory potentially capable of making up to 625 million counterfeit cigarettes and five million pouches of fake hand rolling tobacco a year were jailed. The plot, worth over £131m per annum in lost revenue, was foiled when HM Revenue andand Customs criminal investigators swooped and closed down the fully equipped cigarette factory in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, before it went into production. During the raid in September 2009 they discovered that the gang were also planning to expand into making counterfeit alcohol.
Sentenced in 2012: Paul O’Meara, Robert Doran, Patrick Gray, Martin Cleland, Mark Sadgrove, Wayne Stock and Matthew Neale – 24 years 6 months
Background: A gang which described over 20 million smuggled cigarettes on shipping documents as babies’ toys was jailed after a covert surveillance operation.The seven men were arrested after some were seen unloading over 10 million illicit cigarettes at a warehouse in Upminster after they had been smuggled into the UK from Dubai through the port of Felixstowe. The total duty evaded is estimated as £3.3 million.
