wmlro.com: phantom frequent flyers jailed
It's a simple idea: buy the cheapest plane ticket you can, buy your duty free, then go home, throw away the ticket, and save money on your purchases.
Well, what seemed like a good idea at the time turned from hobby to small business for Christopher Campbell (39) from Chapel Park in Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK.
The fraud came to light when a passenger booked from Newcastle to Geneva bought 16,000 duty free cigarettes. With 200 in a carton, it's a lot of hand-luggage.
But he might have got away with it except for one flaw in the plan: he didn't go to Geneva, instead he hopped on a plane to London using another ticket.
The size of the purchase, combined with his "no show" raised interest, and the link to London confirmed suspicions that he was up to no good.
Although Campbell was not the passenger identified, he had booked both tickets and he and another man were travelling on the London flight. Campbell had booked a one-way hire car from Heathrow to Newcastle.
As HMRC looked into the case more, they found that Campbell had a team of people working for him, using tickets to anywhere so long as they were cheap.The cigarettes were sold on at a profit.
Campbell's proceeds have not be quantified: HMRC says only that it is "thought" that he evaded tax of more than GBP100,000 over a period of two years. One credit card had spending of more than GBP70,000 but no debit balance.
Confiscation proceedings are being commenced but there are few signs of assets: it appears that Campbell mostly just spent the money.
Download PDF version of this page