A man from Bologna is one of five members of a suspected criminal gang to have been arrested on suspicion of an attempted £500,000 UK online tax fraud.

The man was arrested by HMRC investigators on arrival from Italy at Stansted airport at the weekend, along with four other people in London, Stansted and Chatham in Kent. One has been charged with cheating HMRC and four have been released on bail.

The arrests followed an investigation by Italian state police into claims that the gang had stolen the identities of 700 UK citizens which were used to apply for £500,000 in rebates. They are alleged to have collected over £100,000 since June last year.

HMRC said it is investigating what it termed 'a cyber-attack by a group suspected of illegally obtaining personal data from third parties to set up false self- assessment accounts with HMRC.

Andrew Sackey, assistant director of criminal investigation, said: 'HMRC's online systems proved extremely resilient to these attacks. They correctly identified and prevented the vast majority of false repayment attempts from the outset. These arrests clearly demonstrate that we can, and will, apprehend those suspected of attempting to cheat UK taxpayers by defrauding HMRC, with international assistance if necessary.'