Gerald Moane, from County Fermanagh, was originally jailed for 16 months after an investigation by HMRC which found he had created false invoices claiming he had bought machinery and completed farming work to fraudulently reclaim VAT.

Moane has now been given a confiscation order for £392,333, which he has three months to pay in full. If he fails to pay he will serve a default prison sentence of three and a half years.

In a first for Northern Ireland, HMRC also applied for a compliance order under the Proceeds of Crime Act. This gives Moane seven days to outline how he plans to pay back the money and he has to provide the court service with updates every 14 days. Failure to comply with the order can carry a prison sentence of up to two years.

HMRC investigators arranged a restraint of assets while the confiscation proceedings progressed through the courts. Any sale of these assets will now be used to fund the confiscation payment.

The confiscation order and the order for repayment remains in place even after the default sentence is served. If the assets held by the defendant at the time of the order, are less than the benefit derived from the fraud, then any future assets can be confiscated up to the value of the benefit of the fraud.