Tax fraudster stole £2.4m and blew it on life of luxury
HMRC gang’s Scots ‘lynchpin’ jailed for 5 years
A SCOTS tax worker who enjoyed the high life on the back of a £2.4million VAT fraud has been jailed for more than five years.
Susanne Green was described by a judge as the “lynchpin” of the massive scam involving a gang of six who have now been jailed for a total of more than 24 years.
Green, 38, of Elgin, Moray, splashed her share of the cash from the “highly organised” scam on cars and expensive holidays, including one to Las Vegas.
She used her inside knowledge to claim millions in VAT payments while working at the tax office in Southend, Essex.
Green channelled millions in unclaimed VAT into business accounts provided by unqualified accountants Michael Perry, 46, and Daniel Weidner, 47. Green’s lover Arthur Lee, 55, passed the details to Perry and Weidner, who then claimed the cash on behalf of clients’ companies.
Lee and two other men – Londoner Michael Myatt, 56, and Stephen Maish, 54, a semi-pro darts player from Lancashire – allowed their identities and companies to be used in the fraud.
The scam was only uncovered when a real claimant asked why no refund had arrived.
An investigation found another three payments had been wrongly sent to the same account.
In all four instances, Green handled the claims.
Joff Parsons, a fraud investigator at HMRC, said: “Green, Lee, Perry and Weidner were at the forefront of a highly sophisticated fraud. As an HMRC employee, Green was trusted with sensitive information on a daily basis but she abused her position and was pivotal to the theft.
“The defendants used a network of front companies to receive the fraudulent payments and to launder the proceeds.
“Had HMRC not stopped them, they could have attempted to steal millions more in a deliberate attack on the public purse but they are now facing over 24 years in jail as a result of their fraud.”
Jailing Green for five years and six months at Southwark Crown Court earlier this month, judge Joanna Korner said she committed a “colossal breach of trust”.
She said: “It was a fraud that was well-planned, sophisticated and difficult to detect.”
And she added: “Green joined this conspiracy not through need but through greed.”
It was revealed Green used some of the cash to buy a £30,000 Toyota Rav4 as well as luxury holidays.
Prosecutors are now trying to seize the gang’s criminal profits.
Lee, of Hornchurch, Essex, was jailed for four years and six months for conspiracy to cheat the public revenue, and two years six months to run concurrently on a further charge. He was disqualified from being a director for five years.
Perry, of Southend on Sea, Essex, was jailed for five years and three months. Weidner, of Eastleigh, Hampshire, was jailed for five years and six months.
Myatt, also of Hornchurch, was jailed for two years and disqualified from being a director for three years. And Maish, of Wigan, was jailed for two years and disqualified for three years.