Birmingham brothers get 10 years in jail for fraud
Two Birmingham men who set up a fake charity to steal more than £450,000 in Gift Aid repayments have been jailed for nearly 10 years.
Twin brothers Arfan and Imran Ali, 30, claimed to be trustees of charities providing clean water to developing countries, and sent a total of £456,408 in fraudulent claims to Gift Aid, a scheme enabling charities to reclaim tax on donations.
However, they didn’t provide these, or any other services, or raise any money for the causes they claimed to be supporting, and made up aliases so they could commit fraud, a HMRC investigation found.
The brothers submitted £1.2 million in claims for Gift Aid repayments based on false donations between May 2009 and August 2012, and used the details of a legitimate charity to submit more fraudulent Gift Aid claims.
They withdrew large sums of money for themselves and transferred some to their numerous businesses, including a number of catering companies and a convenience store.
Imran Ali was convicted of conspiracy to cheat the public revenue in July last year, and sentenced to five years. Arfan, who failed to turn up to court and was arrested in October last year, also convicted of conspiracy to cheat the public. He was convicted and sentenced this week to four years and eight months.
In jailing Arfan Ali, Judge Heidi Kubik QC, said: “Imran Ali sought to blame everything on you and now you have had your own trial, where you have been seeking to blame him in his absence.
“You have each used your status as identical twins to your advantage in an attempt to mislead the jury. Happily, this jury has seen through that.”
Paul Fisher, Assistant Director, Fraud Investigation Service, HMRC said: “It’s shocking to see the depth of cynicism these two sank to steal money. They twisted and abused a way of helping good causes. They set up bogus charities as a front to commit fraud. The brothers knew what they were doing was utterly wrong but didn’t care.”
