A Chelmsford man has been jailed after faking hundreds of charitable donations to steal over £700,000 from the public purse through a sophisticated Gift Aid fraud.

Abdul Muttakin Robbani, 54, pleaded guilty to cheating the public revenue and three counts of transferring criminal property. He was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison at Chelmsford Crown Court today.

Robbani registered ‘RMI Club’ as a Community Amateur Sports Club (CASC), in December 2019. Between March 2020 and May 2021, RMI Club submitted 60 fraudulent Gift Aid claims to HMRC totalling over £1 million, of which £708,750 was paid out.

Gift Aid is a government scheme that allows charities and CASCs to reclaim tax on donations made by UK taxpayers. In reality, those named as donors had not made any such donations. Many had simply completed a survey online for a small payment but and had no knowledge of RMI Club whatsoever.

Robbani used the money to pay off significant personal and family debts including paying off mortgages on two properties in Chelmsford and Ipswich, both of which were subsequently transferred into his wife's name.

Emma Beazley from the Crown Prosecution Service said: "Gift Aid exists to boost the vital work of charities and sports clubs - Robbani cynically exploited that system for personal gain, pocketing hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money that should never have been his.

"He went to elaborate lengths to cover his tracks, embroiling hundreds of innocent members of the public into his scheme by falsely listing them as donors, and creating a web of circular bank transactions to try and disguise what he was doing.

"HMRC investigators were not deceived however and identified the fraud for what it was, painstakingly unravelling the full extent of his deception. Working in partnership, the CPS prosecution team built a strong case leading to Robbani having no choice but to plead guilty.

“Confiscation proceedings are ongoing under the Proceeds of Crime Act to recover the profits of this criminal activity.”

Steve Doyle, Assistant Director at HMRC’S Fraud Investigation Service, said: “Robbani stole money that was meant to support genuine charities and instead used it to pay off mortgages and debts.

“This case shows that no matter how sophisticated a crypto scheme may appear we can and will take action. Tax fraud is not victimless. It has real consequences for the public services we all rely on and we encourage anyone with information about any type of tax fraud or money laundering to report it on GOV.UK.”

Building the case - the fraud and the evidence

The false claims submitted by Robbani stated that 716 individuals had donated between £5,000 and £10,000 to RMI Club. Robbani told HMRC these individuals had been recruited via a marketing survey called the 'Sigma Social Impact Programme' which was based around a cryptocurrency mining scheme called ‘XO’ which he had created.

To create the false impression that large donations had been received, Robbani circulated money between bank accounts he controlled, using the names of purported donors as payment references. HMRC banking analysis revealed that, prior to the fraud, several of these accounts held a balance of just £1.

The investigation was initiated by HMRC's compliance team in June 2021 and was later referred to their Fraud Investigation Service. Investigators interviewed a sample of named donors, obtained banking records and commissioned analysis by a cryptocurrency expert who concluded that Robbani’s cryptocurrency, the ‘XO token’ represented no objective value. HMRC obtained an account freezing order and was able to forfeit £215,000. A further £485,750 was traced to Robbani's personal bank account. Confiscation proceedings are ongoing.

As well as the jail sentence, the court also disqualified Robbani from acting as a company director for 15 years and imposed a Serious Crime Prevention Order for five years to start when he is released from jail.

The court heard that Robbani has previous convictions for deception and forgery from the 1990s, and in 2011 the Charity Commission removed a charity he chaired from the register following serious governance failings.