Fraudster must pay back £6.8m

THE leading gang member behind a VAT fraud has been ordered to pay back over £6.8 million.

Raymond Cox, from Staffordshire, was originally jailed with five other men, one from Failsworth, for a total of 47 years in 2007.

The gang each faced a confiscation hearing to recover their share of an estimated £85 million fraud. Cox’s confiscation order is the largest.

His realisable assets include overseas company assets, holdings and accounts totalling £3.8 million, an apartment in Spain worth approximately £260,000, a Rolex watch valued at £2,500, £2.6 million in cash following the sale of a mansion in Staffordshire, a helicopter, a Sealine motor yacht and a performance car collection.

The original case followed one of the biggest ever investigations by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), involving nearly 100 mobile phone traders

Colin Jones, originally from New Oak Close, Failsworth, was one of the original gang jailed for five years.

The phones were purportedly imported into the UK VAT free by various companies set up by the fraudsters, who then sold the phones on, charging VAT that was never paid over to HMRC.

Cox (38) was ordered to repay £6,831,340 in total — he must pay £2.6million by February 23 and the remaining balance by January, 2010 or a further 28 days will be added to his 12-year jail sentence.

Following on from Cox’s confiscation, another gang member, Brett Simon Issitt, from Todmorden, was ordered to repay £107,963.95.