AN UNQUALIFIED accountant is facing years behind bars for his part in conning HMRC out of millions in VAT payments.

Daniel Weidner, 47, and five other gang members used insider knowledge to fraudulently claim £2.4m.

A three-year investigation into the group found former HMRC employee Susanne Green, 38, from Moray, Scotland, had used her position in the department to find unallocated VAT payments and pay them elsewhere.

An unallocated payment is a payment made by a trader or individual that has insufficient details on it, meaning it cannot be processed by the HMRC until it has been examined.

Green found a folder of unallocated payments and placed them into other firms’ accounts. The director would then dissolve the companies and pocket the cash before the transactions could be traced.

Green used company details provided by bogus accountants Weidner and Michael Perry, 46, from Essex.

Arthur Lee, 55, from Essex, acted as the intermediary between Green and the two “accountants”.

Along with Lee, Londoner Michael Myatt, 56, and semi-professional darts player Stephen Maish, 54, from Wigan, allowed their identities and companies to be used as part of the fraud.

The investigation came to light when a legitimate taxpayer of an unallocated payment queried why their payment to HMRC had not credited to its VAT account.

Joff Parsons, assistant director, Fraud Investigation Services, HMRC, said: “Green, Lee, Perry and Weidner were at the forefront of a highly sophisticated fraud.

“As an HMRC employee Green was trusted with the sensitive information she was dealing with on a daily basis, but she abused her position and was pivotal to the theft.

“The defendants used a network of front companies to receive the fraudulent payments and to launder the proceeds.

“Had HMRC not stopped them, they could have attempted to steal millions more in a deliberate attack on the public purse but they are now facing over 24 years in jail as a result of their fraud.”

Judge Joanna Korner said: “It was a fraud that was well planned, sophisticated and difficult to detect. Those employed by government agencies have a high degree of trust placed in them.”

All six were found guilty at Southwark Crown Court.

Weidner, of Sandy Lane, Eastleigh, who pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to cheat the public revenue, was jailed for five years and a half years.