Briton wanted for £1 billion fraud by ripping off Italian government through scheme designed to combat global warming
- Imran Yakub Ahmed, from Preston, is wanted over £1 billion fraud in Italy
- The money was allegedly laundered and reinvested in Dubai
A British national is wanted by Italian police in connection with a fraud of more than a billion pounds.
Imran Yakub Ahmed, from Preston, is accused of defrauding the Italian state out of €1.15 billion – (£1.17 billion) in VAT.
Imran Yakub Ahmed, who is wanted over a fraud of more than a billion euros.
A spokesman for the prosecutor confirmed their investigation involved a number of European passport holders – including one Briton from an immigrant community – and was ‘almost complete’.
Police are investigating 38 people and 11 of those are still wanted for questioning, including 40-year-old businessman Ahmed.
Italian authorities claim Ahmed worked with another company and used stolen identities and fake corporations, to buy and sell carbon credits at marked up prices
Ahmed came to the attention of the Italian authorities in 2010.
Ahmed administered the SF Energy Trading company in Milan, working with another Italy-based company to buy and sell carbon credits. The credits are traded between firms and states to meet their international environmental commitments, under the Kyoto Protocol.
The two companies allegedly used stolen identities and links to fake corporations in China to run the scam, in which carbon certificates were bought in France, Germany, Holland and the UK, then sold on to unsuspecting customers with an added cost of 20 per cent VAT.
The tax was never paid to Italian authorities, but was allegedly transferred to bank accounts in Cyprus and Hong Kong, before ending up in Dubai.
Investigators discovered that the funds had been reinvested into diamonds and property development in Dubai as well as in two luxury watches bought in Rome for €50,000 (£39,000) each.
Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.