The arrests were part of a wider investigation into suspected criminal attacks, eight people were arrested on 12 October, including a tax agent.

These individuals are suspected to have conspired to submit over 100 fraudulent research and development tax credits (RDTC) claims, totalling over £16m, and laundering the proceeds.

A group of 130 officers of HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service executed warrants across multiple locations across England. 

An HMRC spokesperson said: ‘We have prevented significant organised criminal attacks and fraudulent abuse of the R&D tax reliefs and are continuing to step-up our monitoring of claims for fraud.

‘By acting quickly to pause payments and implement additional checks on claims, we have protected £46m of public money. We have also arrested eight people suspected of conspiring to submit over 100 fraudulent R&D relief claims, including a tax agent suspected of criminally facilitating the fraudulent attack.’

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