Fake butcher and his wife in £278,000 HMRC scam Couple guilty of fraud over mutton that did not exist

AFAKE butcher and his lingerie-selling ex-wife have been handed suspended prison sentences for a £278,000 tax and benefit scam that saw them splash out on luxury cars and five-star hotels.

Javed Khan, aged 50, of Oakwood Road, Sparkhill, was part of a gang that claimed to be buying sheep carcasses and selling prepared cuts to wholesalers in West Yorkshire.

But the sheep did not exist, and an HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) investigation in 2012 found the men had fabricated invoices in a bid to reclaim £907,000 in VAT they claimed had been ‘paid’ on the sheep. All nine were convicted of VAT fraud in 2013.

Khan had, however, evaded detection until a fake invoice he had produced was found on a computer belonging to one of the jailed men.

Investigators found Khan had claimed £176,236 in bogus VAT repayments, which nudged the gang’s fraud over the million-pound mark.

The paper trail led to Khan’s thenwife, Sajida Yousaf, aged 47, of Nans- en Road, Sparkhill, who had allowed the proceeds of the fraud to pass through her bank account.

HMRC later discovered Yousaf had failed to declare income from property rental and three businesses – an underwear shop at an indoor market in Perry Bar, trading as ‘Sexy’, a mirror shop, also at the market, and a soft drinks wholesaler in the city – evading £50,799 in taxes. Yousaf kept no accounts for the businesses, meaning investigators were unable to establish her true income.

But had she declared the money, Yousaf may not have been entitled to receive more than £51,385 in tax credits paid to her between 2003 and 2013.

The fraud allowed the pair secure finance on three Audi cars.

Khan admitted conspiracy to cheat the public revenue and Yousaf admitted obtaining tax credit payments fraudulently and cheating the public revenue at Leeds Crown Court in September.

Both were sentenced by Judge Mushtaq Khokar to 18 months in prison, suspended for two years, with Khan ordered to carry out 300 hours’ unpaid work.

A Proceeds of Crime Act hearing to recover the stolen money follows in July. to