Two north Kent men have been convicted in connection with a fraud which denied British taxpayers £11.7 million.

Narinder Chada, 61, of The Russetts, Meopham, and Gurmail Dosanjh, 46, of Singlewell Road, Gravesend, were both found guilty of conspiracy to cheat the public purse.

The pair set up fraudulent companies to buy and sell carbon credits.

They bought the credits at market value and sold them on the cheap while also charging clients VAT.

However, rather than passing the VAT on to the government, they kept it.

Father-and-son duo Daniel Andrew Barrs and Daniel Barrs, from Surrey, facilitated the scheme by money laundering.

The Kent and Essex serious crime directorate started an investigation in May 2011 after information was passed to the force by HM Revenue and Customs.

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The first arrests were made in April 2012 and the case came to trial in 2015.

The four men were found guilty at Southwark Crown Court on March 26.

They will be sentenced on April 20.

Detective Constable Phil Kershaw, from the serious crime directorate, said: “The offenders used companies to buy credits from overseas and sell them in the UK.

“They collected the proceeds of their sales and then dishonestly and deliberately abused the VAT system.

“The more carbon credits they sold, the more VAT they could charge and keep.

“In all, the offenders charged their customers £11.7 million in VAT and moved the money between several companies to try and cover their tracks.

“We followed the trail of laundered cash from the UK to Europe, the Middle East and as far as New Zealand and Australia.”

He added: 'This was not a victim-less crime.

“By depriving the government of millions of pounds of VAT, the offenders were in effect stealing from all UK taxpayers.

“The money should have been spent on schools, hospitals and other services.”