Fraudster jailed for 3.5 years after self-assessment scam

An illegal immigrant has been jailed for three and a half years after carrying out a £500,000 tax fraud.

Ukrainian Dmytro Shepel, 25, registered 350 fake identities on the Self-Assessment tax system before using them to claim tax repayments totalling £645,721.42.

HMRC paid out £559,497.42 of these claims.

Mr Shepel was using a false Lithuanian identity and had opened 74 bank accounts over two years, later used to receive false tax repayments.

He pleaded guilty of cheating the public revenue and possessing an identity document that was false. Mr Shepel was sentenced to three and a half years imprisonment and will be deported on release.

Simon Grunwell, assistant director of HMRC Criminal Investigations, says: "This was a criminal plot which deprived the nation's public services of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

"We are determined to stop those involved in this type of criminal activity and bring them before the courts. HMRC takes fraud extremely seriously.

"In common with commercial financial organisations, we face attempts by individuals and organised criminals to steal from us and we have processes in place to detect and counter fraudulent repayments claims.

"These are kept under constant review to ensure we are able to deal effectively with ever evolving threats."

HMRC has stepped up its attempts to combat fraud in the past few months.

However, accountants and members of the public have complained its more stringent security processes have led to confusion and delays in tax rebates.