Businessmen who used £8.8m VAT scam to buy gold bullion and diamonds jailed

The four bosses of a West Lothian-based business behind a multi-million pound VAT scam have been jailed for more than 22 years.

Graeme Cullen, Leslie Thompson, Graham Newall, and Martin Lang were convicted of the scheme earlier this year, which resulted in the fraudulent evasion of £8.8m in VAT between September 2015 and June 2017.

Linear Services handled payroll for 27 employment agencies but failed to hand over the VAT they owed to HMRC over a two-year period.

The High Court of Glasgow heard how the directors spent the huge sum on expensive homes, holidays, diamonds and even gold bullion.

Thompson is already serving a six-year sentence for his part in a complicated multi-million-pound tax fraud that led to convictions for a network of 20 corrupt company directors.

The 63-year-old, from Bathgate, West Lothian, was jailed in October, while his wife, Beverley, was handed a two-year suspended sentence for her role in the scam.

The Linear Services bosses were caught following a lengthy investigation by HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service, who worked alongside partners from Police Scotland’s Specialist Crime Division.

Lang, 68, pleaded guilty to stealing a sum of £4,813,493 on January 30; he was jailed for four years and three months.

Thompson, Cullen, 54, and Newall, 49, were sentenced on April 21 after an eight-week trial at Glasgow High Court.

Cullen was sentenced to six years behind bars, Newall was jailed for five years and six months, while Thompson was jailed for seven years.