The London Evening Standard published the figures this week after obtaining records from the CPS which show that almost 170 of Britain’s most serious criminals have missed deadlines imposed by judges to repay cash they were ordered to pay after they were convicted.
Included in the list, which was given to the Standard by the CPS,are Shakeel Ahmad and Syed Ahmed who own two blocks of flats in Dubai as well as £2m worth of property in the UK. The towers owned by the fraudsters are said to be Yacht Tower and the Royal Oceanic.
At their trial in 2007 the pair were convicted of cheating the UK taxman out of more than £37m through a VAT scam and were jailed for seven years and ordered to pay back more than £16m each. However, more than 16 months after the deadline to repay the money expired, neither have yet made a payment.
The newspaper also drew attention to two drug dealers, Lincoln White and Gabriel Solomons, who were convicted and jailed in 2005. As well as being handed a 25 year jail term, White was also ordered to repay £3.1m from the proceeds of homes he had bought in Jamaica as well as cash he allegedly hoarded in accounts in the Cayman Islands.
