Over 400 HMRC criminal investigators, supported by 100 officers
from Strathclyde Police, Greater Manchester Police and the
Metropolitan Police Service, executed over 60 search warrants
nationwide at business and domestic addresses in the early hours of
this morning.
HMRC reckons it loses more than £1 billion a year as a result of
Missing Trader Intra-Community (MTIC) VAT fraud.
In its simplest form this type of fraud involves obtaining a VAT
registration number in the UK for the purposes of purchasing goods
free from VAT in another EU Member State, selling them at a
VAT-inclusive purchase price in the UK and then going missing or
defaulting without paying the VAT due to HMRC.
Today's detentions are linked to a more abusive form of MTIC
fraud known as carousel fraud. Carousel fraud involves the same
goods being traded around contrived supply chains within and beyond
the EU, re-entering the UK on a number of occasions with the VAT
being stolen each time.
The goods most commonly associated with carousel fraud are
mobile phones and computer chips.
Gordon Miller, Deputy Director, HMRC Investigation, said: "We
are committed to tackling carousel fraud and to showing the
criminals behind it, wherever they operate in the world, that there
are no safe havens."
