Two North London café owners, who claimed £67,000 in VAT fraudulently and spent the money on gifts including Premier League football tickets for their family, have been sentencedto a suspended sentence after an investigation by HMRC
Andreas Odysseos, and Kathlena Bowman, who ran the Americanos Café in Edmonton, were found to have made 11 fraudulent VAT repayment claims between May 2012 and August 2014.
HMRC officers discovered the couple, who together cooked and ran front of house in their American–themed diner, produced dozens of fake invoices, for non-existent kitchen equipment, to support their claims. The couple continued to fraudulently claim VAT repayments even after the café had ceased trading.
The couple spent the proceeds of their fraud, which totalled £67,768, on lifestyle expenses and gifts for their family, including tickets to see Tottenham Hotspur.
At Blackfriars Crown Court Odysseos was sentenced to 26 months in prison and Bowman to 20 months in prison, suspended for two years.
Anthony Swarbrick, assistant director, fraud investigation service, HMRC, said: ‘Odysseos and Bowman thought they were above the law and that they could get away with cheating the system. They were wrong and they are paying the price for their greed.’
