Two restaurateurs who cooked up a VAT fraud of almost £700,000 have been jailed.
Antonio Carbajosa, 41, and Kevin Campbell, 44, who ran a group of venues in Glasgow including Cranside Kitchen and Halloumi, were busted after an HMRC probe.
They pleaded guilty to fraudulent evasion of VAT totalling £682,882 between November 2011 and October 2016 and were each sentenced to three years in prison.
Meanwhile their accountant Khalid Javid, 67, a prominent pro-independence supporter who was pictured with leading SNP figures including Nicola Sturgeon, admitted recklessly making a statement which was false.
Details of the case could not be reported until his part had been resolved. He had been due to stand trial before also pleading guilty yesterday.
The High Court in Glasgow heard Carbajosa and Campbell ‘acted together in a co-ordinated way’ in the lucrative scam.
The men ‘suppressed’ the true value of sales for their limited companies that were registered.
The firms between them included Cyprus Leisure, Rotunda Leisure, Lookoil, Catering 58, Beachfront, Seaside 41, South Promenade and La Reguera.
Antonio Carbajosa (pictured) ran a group of venues in Glasgow including Cranside Kitchen and Halloumi with Kevin Campbell
Accountants KA Javid & Co created their business’s VAT returns and dealt with other matters such as PAYE and corporation tax as well as annual returns to Companies House.
Carbajosa and Campbell meantime were responsible for creating and maintaining business records to calculate the levy.
Advocate depute Wojciech Jajdelski said: ‘Carbajosa and Campbell did not comply with the VAT requirements in order to profit, in the longer term, from their restaurant businesses by not accounting for all of the VAT due to HMRC.
‘As a result of not all VAT due being paid to HMRC, the companies were more profitable than they would otherwise have been.
‘The companies were able to finance their commercial activities, including payments of staff wages, out of the sales income part of which ought to have been accounted for HMRC.
Carbajosa and Campbell were also able to take more money out of the companies as their personal income than they otherwise would have been able to do.’
The fraud came to light after HMRC spotted initial discrepancies in returns from two of the businesses and a forensic accounting report was ordered.
Kevin Campbell (pictured) and Mr Carbajosa pled guilty to VAT fraud at the High Court in Glasgow
Mr Jajdelski said: ‘The Crown accepts for present purposes that the total sum to which the fraudulent evasion of tax by the two men amounted was £682,882.’
The advocate depute added that all of the relevant companies had an annual VAT turnover which was ‘significantly’ in excess of that year’s registration limits.
Furthermore, three of the companies were not registered for VAT and did not pay tax on sales.
Mr Jajdelski said: ‘Carbajosa and Campbell knew that the sales information provided in the VAT returns were false.’
The advocate depute stated that HMRC made a total loss of £136,576 from Javid’s actions.
Sentence was deferred on Javid pending background reports until next month. He was granted bail meantime by judge Lord Young.
