Diamonds among £2.5m assets seized

Land, property, jewellery and cash amounting to more than £2.5 million has been recovered from a man involved in extensive VAT fraud.

The Crown Office’s civil recovery unit (CRU) first secured forfeiture of Ronnie Decker’s assets in April 2016 but he raised a legal challenge to keep some of the items. The assets, held in countries around the world, will now be handed over after the case settled out of court.

The Crown Office said Decker, who is originally from Sierra Leone and was educated in Scotland, was involved in fraud alongside Michael Voudouri and Mohammed Sarfraz Sattar through the company Q-tech. Voudouri is currently serving a prison sentence, while the CRU recovered more than £1.2 million from Sattar.

Diamonds and designer watches seized from Decker were sold at auction and raised more than £130,000.