Restaurant owner jailed over £480k fraud after cash hidden behind wardrobe
A restaurant owner has been jailed over a half a million pound tax scam.
Nazrul Islam was rumbled when investigators uncovered a sales book at his Great Barr home which contained meticulous records of his takings over a five-year period.
Piles of cash, totalling more than £22,000, were found stashed behind a marble wardrobe when officers raided his home.
The numbers logged in the sales book did not match up with sales submitted in his VAT returns, while Islam also registered a different card payment machine to direct payments into a separate account.
The card sales, along with the hidden cash sales, helped him hide up to half of his declared takings in a bid to evade nearly £480,000 of tax payments.
Islam was arrested in April 2017 as part of an HMRC sting and his restaurant in Repton, Derbyshire, was also searched.
The crooked business man admitted evading VAT payments, income tax and national insurance payments at an earlier hearing at Birmingham Crown Court.
He was jailed for three years on Thursday and banned from being a director for seven years.
Richard Paris, assistant director at HMRC's Fraud Investigation Service, said: “This was a determined, well-planned and long-running fraud, which even saw Islam buy and use separate card payment machines.
“Tax fraud is not a victimless crime. Islam deprived vital UK public services of this money and he gained an unfair advantage over honest competitors who pay the tax they owe.
“I would urge anybody who knows of anyone committing any type of tax fraud to report them to HMRC, or call our Fraud Hotline on 0800 788 887."
HMRC said it was working to recover money that was evaded in tax.
