A family of fraudsters who pocketed more than £45 million in the largest tax scam of its kind in UK history have been jailed for a total of 27½ years.
Geoffrey, Joshua and Andrew Copp lived the high life using cash owed to the taxman – with lavish houses, private jet travel and a fleet of supercars proudly displayed outside 24-year-old Joshua’s homes in Fairfield and Stotfold.
A Fairfield neighbour told the Comet: “He was the subject of many questions while living there, as well as much admiration from car enthusiasts who marvelled at how someone so young could afford it all.”
Appearing for sentence at Wood Green Crown Court on Friday, Joshua – now of Barnet in north London – was jailed for eight years.
His father Geoffrey and uncle Andrew were sentenced to 10½ years and nine years behind bars respectively.
Speaking afterwards, DCI Josie Hayes called the scheme “a highly organised payroll fraud, on a scale never before seen in the UK”.
She said: “This was a sophisticated scam, yet all three defendants consistently denied any knowledge that their companies owned such an enormous amount of VAT.
“They saw this money as a windfall to spend as they wished. But this was not a victimless crime.
“The vast sums of cash they spent so freely on their extravagant lifestyles should have gone into paying for public services such as health, welfare and law and order.
“All three were well aware of what they were doing and played a substantial role in this conspiracy.
“Geoffrey set up the payroll companies and the mechanism of the fraud. Andrew became the director of the company during the time when most of the VAT was stolen. And Joshua played an administrative role and shared out the proceeds.
“Now they will all pay for their crimes with time behind bars.”
Police are now working to recover the cash that should have gone into the public purse, and have already obtained a restraint order for £22 million in property and cash.
The three Copps ran a Rickmansworth-based firm called Central Payroll Specialists, later rebranded as Quality Premier Services, which was used by recruitment agencies to manage the wages of thousands of temporary workers.
But the trio did not pass the VAT they received from the recruitment agencies to HM Revenue and Customs – it instead went into their own pockets.
In 2015, police found that Joshua Copp had declared his income as £19,256 for the tax years between 2010 and 2015, yet the companies had transferred £11.6m to his personal bank accounts between 2013 and 2015.
Police raided his Stotfold home in Oliver’s Lane in May that year, and among other things found transfers from a Las Vegas casino showing he had desposited chips and foreign currency worth $1.5m during a recent trip.
He was in the process of buying a £4.25m home in Barnet, and had nine cars registered in his name including a Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, a Lamborghini Aventador, a Bentley Continental, a Rolls Royce Wraith and a Rolls Royce Ghost.
On his mobile phone, officers found a photo of a notepad showing calculations of how the VAT fraud was worked out and split between him, his father and his uncle. The original notebook was later found at his desk at Quality Premier Services.
Central Payroll Specialists and Quality Premier Services paid just under £4m in VAT between September 2012 and September 2015 – leaving just under £46m in unpaid VAT, HMRC investigators estimated.
Joshua was arrested in May 2015, with his father and uncle also arrested four months later. In March 2016 they were charged with conspiracy to cheat the public revenue and conspiring to conceal, disguise, convert, transfer or remove criminal property.
They stood trial at Wood Green Crown Court from April 4, and were found guilty by a jury on Monday last week.
A fourth man charged with false accounting and conspiracy to cheat the public revenue was found not guilty by a jury and acquitted of the charges.
Both Central Payroll Specialists and Quality Premier Services have been placed into liquidation.
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