DARTFORD: Illegal immigrants jailed after tax fraud plot (From News Shopper)

DARTFORD: Illegal immigrants jailed after tax fraud plot

1:03pm Friday 19th March 2010 in

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THREE illegal immigrants have been jailed for a tax plot which could have illegally netted them £50m from the Inland Revenue.

Using identity documents sold to them by dodgy HM Revenue and Customs employees, the three Nigerians obtained more than £560,000 in fraudulent tax rebates before they were caught.

All three, who were living in Chapman Court in Dartford, were sentenced at Maidstone Crown Court after pleading guilty to conspiring to commit fraud.

Olamide Coker, 33, and Olaniyi Akinyemi, 32, were sentenced to three years in jail while Rufina Ulom, 30, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years.

They are all expected to be deported when released.

The court heard they bought the identity documents for £20 each and used them to fill in self-assessment tax forms online and claim rebates which were sent to Ulom’s bank account.

When HMRC investigators arrested three employees for selling documents they traced the tax claims made using the stolen identities to computers used by Coker, Akinyemi and Ulom.

HMRC officers raided the trio’s home in Dartford and found laptops and documents containing evidence of the fraud.

Sentencing them, Judge Martin Joy said: “This was a sophisticated and well thought out plan to defraud HMRC and was a prolonged and dishonest course of action.

“I am satisfied that your presence here is detrimental to the country and you should each be deported after your sentence.”

After the hearing, the head of HMRC's Internal Governance Criminal Investigations Joff Parsons called Coker, Akinyemi and Ulom “devious fraudsters”.

He said: “They could have deprived UK taxpayers of around £50m were it not for the vigilance of HMRC’s investigators.”

A HMRC spokeswoman said it will use the Proceeds of Crime Act to attempt to retrieve the money obtained by Coker, Akinyemi and Ulom.

The three HMRC employees who sold the indentity documents to them have been sentenced to a total of eight years and two months in prison.