Asset Actions: additional nine years' jail for failing to surrender criminal assets
Emmanuel Hening, a dual French/Belgian national, a convicted VAT fraudster received an extra nine years in jail on Thursday 18 November for failing to repay GBP40 million of his criminal profits, following a confiscation order secured last month. He still owes the money and criminal investigators from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) are actively pursuing its return.
Hening was jailed for 15 years in December 2006 for masterminding the GBP54 million “missing trader” fraud. This is the longest sentence ever handed down by a British court for this type of crime, and the confiscation order was one of the largest ever made.
The investigation by HMRC involved two separate criminal trials and the conviction of seven men and one woman who were sentenced to a total of 40 years in prison.
The confiscation follows a similar order made in February this year, which saw Hening’s partner in crime, Jaswant Raykanda, ordered to repay GBP3.8m and a third defendant Bhovinder Singh Sangha was ordered to pay GBP4.7m in April 2007.
The operation centred on a multi-million pound fraud using the mobile phone industry. Investigations by HMRC began in 2000 and involved breaking the audit trail of businesses based in the UK, Luxembourg and France through a company called Handycom SA operated by Hening.
The phones were purportedly imported into the UK VAT free by various companies set up by Hening. He then sold the phones on paper, charging VAT that was never paid over to HMRC.
These companies then went ‘missing’. The phones were then ‘sold’ down the line to various ‘buffer’ traders one of which was operated by Raykanda before they were exported back to Hening. Each company made an agreed profit margin on the phones. The companies were based in the West Midlands, Lancashire and the Isle of Man.
Download PDF version of this page