Three jailed for 19 years for stealing £6.9 million from HMRC

Three men from Kent Aquil Ahmed, Victor Shearer and Christopher Azzopardi have been served jail sentences totaling 19 years for stealing £6.9 million in taxes from the HM Revenue and Customs in the form of VAT, Income Tax, National Insurance Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) deductions.

The fraud was hidden through a network of companies and bank accounts both in the United Kingdom and offshore in the Channel Islands, the UAE, USA, Turkey and Gibraltar.

The mastermind Aquil Shabbir Ahmed, 60, was a management accountant and a former director at various Rochester based accountancy and financial management companies under the banner of ‘Keepers’.

Ahmed and his bookkeeper Christopher Azzopardi 37, operated payroll services for clients through the various ‘Keepers’ companies, supposedly calculating wages and paying any tax due to HMRC. Clients were charges the taxes but they were not paid across to HMRC.

Victor Shearer, 43, a director at Leaner Logistics – a construction services company – supplied short-term contractors to the construction industry, mainly in London and the South East. Often providing hundreds of workers at a time, Shearer turned to Ahmed’s Keepers companies to run his payroll and CIS.

Over time, Shearer introduced other clients to the payroll company, who also used this fraudulent scheme. But rather than pay the tax and National Insurance to HMRC, the three men stole the money to fund Ahmed and Shearer’s lavish lifestyles, according to the HMRC.

Lavish Lifestyles

Aquil Bashir Ahmed owned a Bentley, owned properties in UK, USA and Turkey. He took multiple foreign holidays to Dubai and the Monaco Grand Prix.

Shearer too spent his takings on property and high living, ski holidays, cars and treating friends, family and clients.

The bookkeeper it is said was in debt even though Ahmed paid him £60,000 a year – twice the market salary for a bookkeeper.

The HMRC termed the crime as one of greed where the three men abused systems designed to ensure workers are paid correctly and taxes are paid to the HMRC.

Commenting on the three criminals, Assistant Director, Fraud Investigations Service HMRC, Chris Gill said, “these criminals thought they’d created a sophisticated fraud, and that by operating through numerous UK and offshore companies, they could hide what they were doing. But our investigations are thorough, and with assistance from authorities in Gibraltar, we unravelled the many layers they’d created and they are now paying the price for their crimes.”

Ahmed, Azzopardi and Shearer were sentenced to 7 years 8 months, 4 years and 7 years 6 months imprisonment, respectively.