A woman from Macclesfield enjoyed the high life thanks to money laundering in Holland.
The 52-year-old company director of a Manchester pharmaceutical market research company was found guilty of laundering 3.2m euros thanks to 96 fake invoices for work that was never done.
The widow lived in The Netherlands where she enjoyed the trappings of vast wealth even though she had no official income there. Now she has been sentenced, although she is not being named due to privacy laws in Holland, according to investigators.
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The woman was handed a two-year sentence following a joint investigation by the Dutch tax authority, The Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD), and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
She remains free pending the result of an appeal.
A Dutch court heard she had no income in The Netherlands, where she lives, but spent vast sums of money there on property, land and luxury cars and boats.
Her lifestyle was funded by committing tax evasion in the UK. She funnelled money from her UK business bank account into Dutch bank accounts via Liechtenstein, according to HMRC.
The woman, a UK national, has been sentenced to two years in jail at a court in Zwolle, Holland, after being found guilty of using 96 false invoices between March 2009 and April 2017 and laundering 3,224,255 euros between January 2009 and April 2017.
The court found that together with her husband, now deceased, the woman, who has a daughter, was guilty of laundering a huge sum of money. Court records say her husband took his own life during the criminal process in Holland.
The court seized cash, bank accounts, three cars and a Sessa yacht as part of the probe. Homes in the UK and Austria were not seized as investigators could not establish they were purchased through money laundering.
As the sole director and shareholder of a pharmaceutical market research company in Manchester, she and her late partner were said to have consistently transferred funds to two companies based in Liechtenstein.
The pair used 'false invoices' for work that was never done.
The dodgy cash was used to fund a lavish lifestyle abroad, including the purchase of a home, second property and agricultural land in the Netherlands, as well as luxury vehicles and boats.
After the hearing, HMRC assistant director Paul Maybury said: "HMRC worked diligently with The FIOD to bring this person to justice. The sentence handed down by the court is testament to the unrelenting determination of the two tax authorities to seek justice and proves that borders are no barrier to successfully prosecuting those who seek to cheat the system."
The case was notable as the first joint investigation HMRC has conducted as part of a new agreement between the tax authorities of the UK, Holland, Australia, Canada and the United States. It is sponsored by the European Union's Agency for Criminal Justice (Eurojust).
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