A businessman who became a millionaire through online trading has been jailed for Cheating the Public Revenue and Money Laundering after the successful conclusion of HMRC’s Operation Epping.
John Woolfenden sold CDs, DVDs and console games through online auction websites. During the fraud Woolfenden had more than 520,000 listings on eBay and forensic accountants discovered that nearly £1.4m had passed through his online bank accounts.
However, Woolfenden evaded paying around £300,000 in self assessment income tax and VAT during the period of a fraud.
Dan Thomas was instructed by Arslan Khan at the Central Fraud Group and he is presently instructed as junior counsel for the HMRC in a nine-handed complex pension fraud trial listed at Birmingham Crown Court for 5-months.
The case was featured in this weekend’s The Sunday Telegraph Money supplement prompting widespread comment within the accountancy industry and reported widely in the national press: