MTIC Fraud:

CTM is staffed by ex HMRC MTIC fraud and money laundering investigators who have over 20 years experience in prosecuting such cases. Our director of Tax also has experience in the private sector, working for KPMG's Tax Investigation Team, with responsibility for defending MTIC fraud prosecutions and providing criminal solicitors with the inside knowledge of HMRC practices that can break down HMRC prosecutions.

We are instructed in many criminal MTIC fraud cases and work hand in hand with specialist criminal legal teams in challenging all aspects of a prosecution, including intrusive surveillance techniques. We are particular adept at analysing and challenging the legality of the methods HMRC used to gather the evidence, and our staff have direct experience in every type of surveillance techniques deployed.

We also work with the very best Barristers in this field and instruct them on a regular basis. Together with specialist MTIC fraud criminal solicitors and top criminal Barristers, we make a formidable team and are invaluable in defending conspiracy, money laundering or other serious charges.

Definition of MTIC Fraud

Missing trader fraud (also called Missing Trader Intra-Community, MTIC, or carousel fraud) is the theft of VAT from a government by organised crime gangs.

In its simplest form, an EU company imports goods from another EU member State tax free. It then sells the goods onto another company within the same country and charges VAT. It then fails to pay that VAT to HMRC and goes missing. As HMRC's approach is often not to prosecute the missing trader, the trader at times goes no-where, but simply defaults on its debt. The missing trader is rarely the brains behind the fraud and HMRC have little appetite in prosecuting such traders without also arresting those behind the fraud.

In its more complex form, MTIC fraud involves goods carouselling through many different EU Member states, with fraud being committed in several countries before the goods return to the country where the fraud started. Often the goods do not exist and the fraud is a paper, or financial, fraud with various companies supplying fictitious goods. An inevitable consequence of MTIC fraud is that "dirty" money passes through many different hands and money laundering charges go hand in hand with conspiracy charges.