Businessman who swindled £1.6 million from the taxman in VAT reclaim scam and lived high life with luxury sports cars and holidays to Mauritius is ordered to pay back £410,000
- Ramoo of Surrey submitted claims for £2.1m from HMRC and received £1.6m
- He used the cash to buy an Aston Martin and fund a luxurious lifestyle, court told
- Fraudster’s wife was earlier cleared by a jury of laundering husband’s proceeds
A businessman who swindled £1.6 million from the taxman and blew a fortune on sports cars has been ordered to pay back £410,000.
Veekshit Ramoo, 34, falsified invoices through his company Ramoo Associates UK Limited to claim back vast sums from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
Ramoo, also known as Arun, spent £411,000 on luxury motors, including an Audi R8 4.2 Quattro, an Aston Martin Rapide and an Audi Q7.
Evidence presented in court showed an Aston Martin and a gold Audi parked in his drive.
He posted pictures on social media of himself posing with his cars with the hashtag #highlife and spent more than £200,000 on trips to Mauritius, India and China.
Veekshit Ramoo has been ordered to pay back more than £400,000 to HMRC
Ramoo was jailed for seven years at Southwark Crown Court in July 2021 after he was convicted of cheating the public revenue and two counts of converting criminal property.
He will now have to pay £410,256 in three months or face another 30 months in prison following a confiscation hearing at the same court.
Ramoo’s VAT reclaim scam ran from between February 2014 and April 2019.
HMRC officials eventually investigated his business records and discovered the invoices were false.
Ramoo was arrested after arriving at Heathrow Airport on a flight from Mauritius in May 2019 after submitting £2.1m of fraudulent VAT repayment claims to HMRC.
His business purported to be providing accountancy, care home staff and foreign exchange services.
In November 2016, he emailed HMRC claiming to be in such financial trouble he ‘might sell the business’.
Evidence presented in court showed an Aston Martin and a gold Audi parked in Ramoo’s drive
But transactions on his account showed £18,000 being spent on a Jaguar in August 2016, while £9,478 was paid for Emirates flights to Dubai.
A month later £40,000 was spent on ‘unknown sources’, £67,950 was spent on a vehicle with Boss Motor Company and £8,807 on exchanging British pounds into Mauritian currency.
Ramoo used the cash to ‘buy luxury motor vehicles and pay for expensive overseas travel’, the court heard.
He had told his wife Yogdiksha, 30, to say ‘you don’t know’ if investigators asked about his luxury motors.
During the couple’s breakup in 2018, she suggested to her husband he might be arrested on his return to the UK from Mauritius.
He replied in a text: ‘I’m a fraudster right? I have to think about how to handle things.’
Veekshit, of Caterham, Surrey, had denied the charges but was convicted of cheating the public revenue and two counts of converting criminal property.
Mrs Ramoo was cleared by the jury of laundering proceeds of her husband’s scam through her bank account.
