Indian-origin Britons were part of 21-member crime gang involved in a £37.5 million tax fraud in the UK. In total, the gang members have been jailed for a total of 74 years for their part in financial crime.
The case, described as one of the most complex investigations by Britain’s customs department, started in April 2002 and after eight trials and retrials, it was closed when the final defendant was sentenced on Tuesday.
The final defendant, Indian-origin Harbans Singh Kohli, was on Tuesday sentenced to two years and six months in prison, bring the eight-year investigation, codenamed Operation Devout, to a close.
Indian-origin Jaswender Singh Chahal, 51, from Birmingham was sentenced to 18 months in prison for laundering £461,000. Forty-five-year-old Sukhdave Singh More from Walsall was sentenced to 9 months for laundering £165,000. He was disqualified from being a company director for five years. Sixty-three-year-old Pravin Jogia from West Midlands, was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison.
London-based Kohli, 47, went through two re-trials for laundering over £1 million in the case. He was disqualified from being a company director for 10 years. He was originally sentenced in 2007 but released by the court of appeal.
The investigation detailed the manipulation of the value-added tax system through the import and export of computer processing units (CPUs). The gang used highly complex chains of VAT registered companies in the UK and abroad.
The tax fraud by the 21-member gang involved the import of CPUs, mainly from Ireland.
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Italy: Priest held for having sex with minor
Milan : A 73-year-old Italian priest has been arrested by the police in the northern city of Milan after being accused of sexually abusing a boy over a three-year period when the victim was 13 years old.
The police on Monday arrested Domenico Pezzini, who had befriended the impoverished boy in a park near Milan.
According to investigators he provided the boy with money and helped him to study, while starting a three-year sexual relationship with him.
During a search of Pezzini’s home in Milan, the police found a large collection of paedophile pornography, according to Italian news reports. Pezzini is known as an activist in the Italian homosexual community and worked to build closer bonds between the community and the conservative Catholic Church.
By arrangement with AKI