Alcohol and cash seized in raids

12 April 2012

Large quantities of alcohol and £100,000 cash have been seized by Customs officers in raids on a suspected multi-million-pound smuggling and money-laundering fraud, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said.

Nine men and one woman were arrested following raids in London, Essex and Dorset on Thursday morning.

More than 100 HMRC criminal investigators executed 13 search warrants at business and domestic addresses in London, Dartford, Hornchurch, Wanstead, Rayleigh, Shoeburyness, Bournemouth and Christchurch and overseas.

The cash was recovered from a property in Bournemouth.

An HMRC spokesman said arrests were made as part of an investigation into alcohol diversion fraud which involves bonded alcohol products being diverted for sale on the UK market, avoiding excise duty.

Steve Baker, HMRC assistant director of criminal investigation, said: "Organised criminals are attacking the tax system, with the aim of stealing huge amounts of revenue.

"This operation is part of a large scale, criminal investigation into a fraud that may have cost the country up to £50 million per year.

"We are committed to tackling excise fraud and to showing the criminals behind it that there are no safe havens.

"We will pursue them, and the money they steal, wherever they operate in the world."

Those arrested are a 28-year-old man in Dartford, a 48-year-old man in Hornchurch, a 33-year-old man in Wanstead, a 55-year-old man from London SW7, two men aged 52 and 46 and a 45-year-old woman from Shoeburyness, a 53-year-old man from Rayleigh, a 43-year-old man from Bournemouth and a 59-year-old man from Christchurch.

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