Crime and Tax Evasion

Jonathan Anwyl, an Oxford and Eton-educated son of a retired crown court judge, helped run a scheme of “utter dishonesty, sophisticated planning and astonishing greed hidden behind a mask of concern for the environment”, Mr Justice Edis said during sentencing at Southwark crown court.

Six men were sentenced for devising fake eco-investment schemes as tax breaks for wealthy investors, including comedians, sports stars and relatives of politicians.

Investors’ money was actually pumped through offshore trusts into the fraudsters’ secret bank accounts and used to fund their lavish lifestyles, including luxury homes, jewellery, holidays and a £250,000 bathroom extension.

Edis said he was quite certain that the fraudsters were motivated by “a desire to become extremely rich”.

“This was an investment scheme devised by very clever if not brilliant professional men who used their reputations to promote and advance it,” prosecutor Charles Miskin QC had told the jury. 

Anwyl, 44, used some of his £1.6m proceeds from the fraud to buy a house in Sydney. A management consultant, Anwyl was a pupil at Dulwich College prep school and Eton College school before going to Oxford University. His mother Shirley Anwyl QC was a circuit judge for 13 years and resident judge at Woolwich crown court until her retirement in 2008. Anwyl was found guilty of conspiracy to cheat the public revenue and jailed for five-and-a-half years.

 The respected scientist, Michael Richards,  used his reputation to convince rich people to invest, marketed it as an “attractive, ethical, green commercial enterprise with tax benefits to those who invested”.

The scheme used two companies registered in the British Virgin Islands and set up by Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers leak. Richards had used his proceeds from the fraud to buy a home in Sussex, southern England, and a property in Dubai. He also spent £32,000 on a diamond engagement ring for his girlfriend from luxury jewellers Boodles.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/10/eton-educated-son-of-qc-jailed-for-part-in-108m