Over 400 HMRC criminal investigators, supported by 100 officers from Strathclyde Police, Greater Manchester Police and the Metropolitan Police Service, executed over 60 search warrants nationwide at business and domestic addresses in the early hours of this morning.
HMRC reckons it loses more than £1 billion a year as a result of Missing Trader Intra-Community (MTIC) VAT fraud.
In its simplest form this type of fraud involves obtaining a VAT registration number in the UK for the purposes of purchasing goods free from VAT in another EU Member State, selling them at a VAT-inclusive purchase price in the UK and then going missing or defaulting without paying the VAT due to HMRC.
Today's detentions are linked to a more abusive form of MTIC fraud known as carousel fraud. Carousel fraud involves the same goods being traded around contrived supply chains within and beyond the EU, re-entering the UK on a number of occasions with the VAT being stolen each time.
The goods most commonly associated with carousel fraud are mobile phones and computer chips.
Gordon Miller, Deputy Director, HMRC Investigation, said: "We are committed to tackling carousel fraud and to showing the criminals behind it, wherever they operate in the world, that there are no safe havens."
