The group used insider knowledge provided by Susanne Green, former tax office employee, to fraudulently claim millions in VAT repayments. Green used her position working in the electronics payments team in Southend to identify unallocated VAT payments and pay them elsewhere.

She then used company details provided by accountants Michael Perry and Daniel Weidner to fraudulently misallocate VAT payments to specified businesses.

Arthur Lee, who was in a relationship with Green, received details of unallocated payments from her and passed them to Perry and Weidner. They then used their clients’ companies to claim the VAT payments for themselves.

Two men, Michael Myatt and Stephen Maish, along with Lee allowed their identities and companies to be used as part of the fraud.

The group were caught out when a legitimate taxpayer of an unallocated payment queried why their payment to HMRC had not credited its VAT account.

During the course of the enquiry a HMRC employee noticed that this payment had been misallocated and that a further three payments had also been misallocated to the same incorrect trader. In all four instances the payments had been handled by Green.

Her Honour Judge Joanna Korner said Green had demonstrated a ‘colossal breach of trust’.

Korner said: ‘It was a fraud that was well planned, sophisticated and difficult to detect. Those employed by government agencies, particularly those concerned with revenue collection, have a high degree of trust placed in them. Green joined this conspiracy not through need but through greed.’

Green had used the fraudulent proceeds to pay for a Toyota Rav4 car and for expensive holidays, including one to Las Vegas.

All six defendants appeared at Southwark Crown Court. Green was jailed for five years and six months and handed a further two years to run concurrently for a second conspiracy count to cheat the public revenue.

Lee was jailed for four years and six months. For a further charge of conspiracy to cheat the public revenue he was jailed for two years and six months to run concurrently. He has also been disqualified from being a director for five years.

Perry and Weidner were jailed for five years and three months and Myatt and Waish have been jailed for two years and disqualified from being a director for three years.

Confiscation proceedings to recover the gang’s criminal profits are ongoing.

Report by Amy Austin