South African Leib Berger, previously known as Lawrence Goldberg, was originally jailed for two years in September 2011 at the Old Bailey for stealing more than £1m through a self assessment tax fraud. Posing as a nominated tax agent, he hijacked innocent people’s identities and invented other clients to send fraudulent tax returns to HMRC. He ran the fraud from a maisonette in West London.

In December 2012, Berger was ordered to repay £249,999 by December 2013 or receive a default prison sentence of 16 months. In an attempt to escape justice he fled to Spain. While he was at large, investigations by HMRC revealed he had further assets and in September 2015 the confiscation order was increased to £1.5m. A month later the default prison sentence was amended to six years.

Berger was tracked down and arrested in Spain on 7 February 2017, and was extradited back to the UK this week to start his prison term.