Four years in jail for fraud crook who fled
A TRAFFORD man, who surrendered to the authorities after seven years on the run, has been jailed for four years for his involvement in a £2.5m illegal fuel laundering fraud.
Martin Toland from Sale, who used the aliases Michael Kelly and Michael Farnan, had been subject to UK and European arrest warrants on suspicion of fuel laundering offences since January 2006, and went into hiding.
He eventually handed himself in and was formally charged in February for his part in the fraud which involved the laundering and distribution of over four million litres of fuel in an eight-month period.
Toland, from Buckfast Road, Sale, was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to offences under the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979 at Reading Crown Court,
Two men from the West Midlands and one from Northern Ireland were previously jailed for a total of 13-and a half years in 2006.
Zoe Ellerbeck, assistant director of Criminal Investigation for HMRC, said: “The final conclusion of this operation is proof of our determined efforts to disrupt and dismantle the illegal supply of fuel. Criminals who try to evade justice will be apprehended and dealt with through the courts, however long they may have been in hiding.”
The gang collected rebated oil (red diesel and kerosene) from a licensed distributor and laundered or mixed it before retailing it as duty paid road diesel and ultra low sulphur diesel. The gang were also smuggling, laundering and mixing green diesel from the Republic of Ireland.
