Oh yeah, another one just came to mind.. Mobile phones VAT fraud.
About ten years ago I went to work for a guy in Stoke-on-Trent who was in the wholesale mobile phone business. I was working for him in a construction capacity as he was earning so much money he was buying cars and property and so started a construction company to do them up and sell them on/live in whatever. He paid me to pay his 'construction workers' and sort out materials etc. He turned out to be one of the biggest arseholes I've ever met.

Basically, his whole phone business was based on something called carousal fraud (or 'bashing') which involves a front company importing phones from the EU sans VAT and then selling them on the the UK plus VAT. Rinse and repeat. Pocket the VAT and you're off. Usually, the stock never even leaves the warehouse, just the paperwork going round in circles. I know for a fact he made millions of pounds, at least £10m in the first year alone. He would often have cash of a £100k in the office in plastic bags.

He drove Ferraris and Aston Martins, once writing off his 360 rushing to his warehouse because it was getting broken into. That was kinda sweet, until he just bought another.

There was quite a few others doing it in Stoke at the time, but it was clamped down on pretty heavily a few years ago, but not before my boss and others had made £billions by essentially de-frauding the Government.

The worst thing he asked me to do? Not grass him up to the Environment Agency for deliberately opening a sluice gate on a cess tank full of cow shit which duly flooded the local stream on an old Farm he bought. Thank God I wasn't bashing phones. I only worked for him for a few months before his arrogance and scruples made it unbearable.

I believe he is still on the run from Customs and Excise, in France somewhere, so I last heard.
( Nuisance Value, Wed 13 Jul 2011, 12:18, 17 replies)

One of my clients
was doing the same thing. He hot-footed it to Dubai about 4 years ago.
(username failed moderation, Wed 13 Jul 2011, 12:58, closed)

When he was called a name, was he "called well"?
Or something that sounds similar?
( Snappyuk gets BIGGER with free sample., Wed 13 Jul 2011, 13:44, closed)

no no no you are mistaking him for simon cowell
another famous cunt with no scruples about taking money.........
ahh
erm ...........

could even be the same person realy
( fluffybunnykiller Is feasting on the clitoris of life, Wed 13 Jul 2011, 14:37, closed)

Do you mean
Welch...per chance
(Wobblegut, Wed 13 Jul 2011, 15:31, closed)

I'm one of the few people
to have spent significant time in Stoke without working for Cauldwell at some point. Noone I know has a nice word about him, and the staff turnover at his companies was astronomical.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 13 Jul 2011, 15:51, closed)

No, he wasn't. Though they knew (or of) each other
It was pretty incestious round there then though.
( Nuisance Value, Wed 13 Jul 2011, 18:29, closed)

I have no wish to be a spelling Nazi,
but I am quite intrigued by the idea of carousal fraud.
(salvadorevincent, Wed 13 Jul 2011, 15:18, closed)

it's where you pretend you're having a party in the middle ages.

( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Wed 13 Jul 2011, 16:28, closed)

carousal
is what I feel when I go dogging.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Wed 13 Jul 2011, 17:00, closed)

/\ dirty bugger /\
ps can i come
( fluffybunnykiller Is feasting on the clitoris of life, Wed 13 Jul 2011, 17:05, closed)

Only if the light is on and the windows are wound down.

( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Wed 13 Jul 2011, 17:07, closed)

Nazi!
Bugger, checked it n everyfin too
( Nuisance Value, Wed 13 Jul 2011, 18:25, closed)

Imagine
how many times I checked my reply.
(salvadorevincent, Thu 14 Jul 2011, 13:40, closed)

It's called MTIC fraud
and HMRC are VERY hot on it, they'll chase him for at least another 10 years or more...
(pma01mer, Wed 13 Jul 2011, 21:15, closed)

GOOD. Fuck him.

( Nuisance Value, Wed 13 Jul 2011, 23:12, closed)

Indeed
Branson had a spell in nick for doing it.
(dchurch bah, Thu 14 Jul 2011, 11:38, closed)

Not the bloke who got caught on it because customs stamped every box, and then when it came back around again... oh deary me, the boxes have already got UK customs stamps on.
( Bathory, Thu 14 Jul 2011, 18:08, closed)