A businessman who swindled half a million pounds of taxpayers’ money in order to build a mansion the size of Buckingham Palace in his native Pakistan has been jailed.
Fraudster Mohammed Suleman Khan, 42, lived a life of luxury at the expense of the UK taxpayer after he dodged paying tax and national insurance for nine years.
He used the illegal money to begin building a sprawling £2.5 million mansion in the Attock region of Pakistan, which police eventually found using Google Earth
A court heard he claimed to be making £40,000-a-year as a debt collector and ‘other business interests’ – but in reality was taking in at least £300,000 per annum.
Neighbours of his £500,000 luxury house in Moseley, Birmingham reported him to police over suspicions that the tracksuit-wearing conman did not ‘look like a businessman’. Detectives then found audacious plans to build a multi-million pound estate back in his native country – complete with a library, private cinema, servant quarters and guard rooms.
Despite not declaring his earnings fraud investigators worked out that in order to fund such a lifestyle they would be in excess of £300,000 per year.
He had also spent £893,000 so far on his mansion under construction in Pakistan, meaning it was estimated his total UK earnings were in excess of £1.1 million.
This meant that, during his time in Britain, he had managed to avoid paying £445,264 worth of national insurance and tax.
Khan pleaded guilty to cheating the public revenue in November last year and on April 4 he was jailed for four years at Liverpool Crown Court.