A fugitive fraudster who stole more than £100 million from the taxpayer has died in prison. At one time Geoffrey Johnson, 79, from Forfar in Angus, was among the UK’s most wanted men.
He was sentenced to 10 years in July 2017 at Kingston Crown Court in London after three years on the run in Africa and the Middle East.
He had been arrested in Dubai that month after flying in from Kenya on a fake passport. Johnson had previously been hiding in Tanzania, where he owned a plant hire company.
The firm employed 125 staff, and Johnson also owned clubs and restaurants. While he was on the run, he was tried in his absence and found guilty.
On his return to Britain, Johnson had an additional 14 years added to his sentence for failing to pay the £109million he scammed from HMRC and six months for failing to turn up for trial in 2014.
The fraudster died on January 12 in an English prison. He was part of an 18-strong gang involved in a huge international mobile phone VAT scam known as a carousel fraud.
It involved crooks claiming back VAT on huge quantities of imported goods – taxes which they had never paid in the first place. The stolen money was then laundered through bank accounts in the UK, Dubai, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Portugal and the US.
Johnson led a luxury lifestyle in Scotland and England before fleeing the country. His family lived in 10-bed Turin House in Forfar, which later sold for £1.2million.
The mansion sits in 21 acres and has a private pool. He and his family were said to have bought top-of-the-range Bentleys, Ferraris and Porsches and travelled by helicopter.
Johnson also owned a £3million home in Staffordshire. It was among assets seized by HMRC investigators. Other luxury items recovered included a yacht, cars, Rolex watches, diamonds and two helicopters.
Speaking after the sentencing, Simon York, director of HMRC’s fraud investigation service, said: “We’ve been pursuing Johnson from the day he decided to flee the UK. Despite him taking audacious measures to evade capture, we tracked him across the globe and he is now back to begin a long spell in prison.
“This sophisticated fraud was outright theft of money intended for important public services and it is right that he now pays the price for that crime.”
Carousel fraud cost the Treasury up to £10billion a year before a tightening of the law curbed the massive fiddle.
The investigation by HMRC led to four criminal trials between 2012 and 2014. The 18 gang members including Johnson received sentences totalling 135 years.
One member, Albert Amritanand, also from Forfar, was sentenced to five years in 2013. He paid back £500,000 after a similar confiscation order was imposed two years later.
Geoffrey Johnson’s son Craig was jailed in 2008 for 12 years for his part in a similar scheme that netted him millions of pounds.
Johnson was an inmate at Wandsworth Prison in London at the time of his death. The Prison Service said: “Geoffrey Johnson died on January 12. As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will investigate.”
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