Steve Brennan Co-founder & CEO


Arif Patel


Yogesh Patel was jailed for five years and seven months after being found guilty of conspiracy to cheat the public revenue and money laundering.


Investigators say Arif Patel, who lived on Sharoe Green Lane in the Preston suburb of Fulwood, left the UK for Dubai in July 2011 and failed to return. He was tried in his absence at Chester Crown Court where he was found guilty of all charges. He will be sentenced in May.


Mohamed Jaffar Ali was found guilty of conspiracy to cheat the public revenue and money laundering. After attending the majority of the trial, he failed to attend court on March 27 this year and a warrant was issued for his arrest. He will also be sentenced in May. Meanwhile, Arif Patel’s brothers Munaf Umarji Patel and Faisal Patel are both on Lancashire Police’s wanted list.


Richard Las, director of the HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service, said: “These guilty verdicts close a significant chapter in one of the biggest tax fraud cases ever investigated by HMRC. For more than a decade HMRC and our partners have worked tirelessly and together to bring this gang to justice.


“Arif Patel lived a lavish lifestyle at the expense of the law-abiding majority. Tax crime is not victimless and fraudsters like this pair steal the money that funds the NHS and other vital public services we all rely on.


“Our work doesn’t stop here. We have more than £78m of the gang’s UK assets restrained and have begun the process to recover all those proceeds of crime.”


Sam Mackenzie, Lancashire’s Assistant Chief Constable, added: “While presenting himself as a genuine and reputable businessman Arif Patel in fact used stolen taxpayers’ cash to line his own pockets and fund a lavish lifestyle.


“This is money that should have been used to fund the vital public services which we all rely on and to which most of us contribute our fair share by working hard and paying tax.”


Presenting himself as that reputable businessman, in 2007 Arif Patel featured on a list of Britain’s most generous charitable donors. He was reported to have given a total of £1.9m to good causes at home and abroad.


At the same time his family also made it onto the Sunday Times Rich List, which put its


Mohamed Jaffar Ali


wealth at £105m. Faisaltex, with its purpose- built head office in Fulwood, was described as one of the most profitable clothing businesses in the UK.


The family fortune was reported to come from the manufacture of socks, underwear and nightwear for big high street names by a business that began with the purchase of knitting machinery from a bankrupt sock factory in Bolton in 1987, for just £80,000.


The machines were then moved to a small factory in Swan Street in Preston, though by 2008 production in the UK had halted and Faisaltex was said to be buying products from a network of international suppliers.


The family business interests at that time also included a portfolio of investment properties, mainly high street sites in Preston, London, Lancaster and Warrington, thought to be worth around £40m in 2008.


In an interview in March that year with Lancashire Business View, Arif Patel spoke of ambitious plans to create a £100m mixed scheme development on a site on a 2.2-acre site close to Preston bus station.


He declared: “We have the opportunity to develop an iconic building that would stand as a symbol of Preston’s ambitions for the future.” There was also talk of the family considering investing £3m into Preston North End football club. In that interview Arif Patel also recounted how he was drafted in to run Faisaltex after just completing a 12-month foundation course in accountancy at the then Preston Polytechnic.


He said: “I was offered trainee scholarships by a number of accountancy firms, but I was always destined to join the family business.”


And he shared his belief that anyone could succeed in Britain, telling the magazine: “We have worked hard and have taken the opportunities that have presented themselves,” and adding: “This country is the fairest in the world by far.”


Andrew Fox, senior prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), described the investigation of the organised criminal group as “immense”.


The case is not yet over. There is the sentencing to come and as Mr Fox revealed: “The CPS will now pursue confiscation proceedings against the defendants, to prevent them enjoying the benefits of their criminal enterprise.”


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www.bespokedigital.agency


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