2 VAT fraudsters - took £16 Mn plus - get 10 years total = 5 years actual - assets recovered - ZERO

John Robert Donnan, DOB 13/2/1956, of 30 Watersfield Way, Edgware, Middlesex HA8 6RZ pleaded guilty to 8 counts of concealing or disguising the proceeds of criminal conduct contrary to section 93C (2) of the criminal justice act 1988, (money laundering totaling £4.86 million) committed between August 2001 and December 2002 yesterday, at Southwark Crown Court. He was sentenced to swell the chock full prison population for seven years imprisonment (AKA 3.5 years with good behaviour) and disqualified from being a company director for eight years.

Gerard Joseph Hyde, DOB 09/05/1952, formerly of 10 Lindfield Road, Ealing, London W5 1QR. He pleaded guilty to 7 counts (approximately £2 million) of concealing or disguising the proceeds of criminal conduct contrary to section 93C (2) of the criminal justice act 1988 committed between February 2002 and December 2002. He was jailed by Southwark Crown Court on 24 May 2007 for three years and six months for his part in the crime.

Donnan, is/was an Australian property developer and is alleged to be the Mr Big in a massive multi million pound money laundering operation that took place over 16 months and across several countries. He was the director of, or associated with, several companies in the UK, Ghana and the Channel Isles that were used to launder the criminal proceeds.

The scam exposed by HMRC used fraudulent companies who sold mobile phones to companies in the UK these companies sold the phones on, charging VAT and then disappeared without accounting for the millions of pounds in VAT. The tax payers money handed over by the HMRC in a period of 16 months amounted to almost £31 million.

Proceeds of the fraud of almost £16.5 million on the UK taxpayer were removed from a Hong Kong bank account and then laundered through accounts in Hungary, Dubai, Ghana, Isle of Man, Guernsey and the UK.

This sounds like a big bust . Missing trader fraud (MTIC) has resulted in losses by HMRC of up to £2 Billion per Quarter for several years and probably now totals over £20 Bn.... the cost say of Northern Wreck or a fleet of 6 massive new Aircraft carriers complete with their planes.

This sounds like a big bust . It is hardly scratching the surface of this massive fraud and recovery of funds in this case is (like most cases) zero.