David Valentine admitted six offences of fraud and money laundering at St Albans Crown Court after a joint investigation by HMRC and British Transport Police, who had found him with a bank card in another person’s name.

HMRC officers discovered that Valentine had used the stolen identity to register the company, Dunthwaite Estate Ltd. However, when officers visited the premises, there was no distillery or preserves making equipment - the company had been set up solely to make fraudulent VAT repayment claims.

Valentine fraudulently claimed £109,619 between August 2012 and September 2014. The stolen VAT was used to fund his other business, JR Gaunt & Son (London) Ltd, which traded in horn buttons. A search of this business address uncovered fake invoices that Valentine had sent between the companies for alleged building works that had not, in fact, taken place. They also discovered unpaid invoices, which he had fraudulently used to reclaim VAT.

Stuart Taylor, assistant director, fraud investigation service, HMRC, said: ‘Valentine knew what he was doing was wrong; and by depriving public services of vital funding, financially he had an unfair advantage over his honest competitors.’

Detective Sergeant Ian Burditt, British Transport Police financial investigator, said: ‘Valentine is a career con man who, had he not been arrested in connection with a totally different offence, might still be out committing crime today. Only when officers found him with bank cards belonging to a person of a different name was his web of deceit unravelled and we discovered the extent of these offences.’

Confiscation proceedings to recover the proceeds of his crime will now follow.