Those tax forms are tricky.

[Fittster]

A mother-of-three, whose business made more than £20m from selling high speed boats to drugs cartels, has been given a two-year suspended prison sentence

Ellen George, 43, of Lowestoft, Suffolk, had pleaded guilty at Ipswich Crown Court to five counts of trying to defraud the Inland Revenue

George ran a property and boat company Compton Marine, with partner Davison, from her Lowestoft home.

Crompton Marine adapted the £350,000 RIBs (rigid inflatable boats) to carry six tons of drugs at speeds of up to 60 knots. They were difficult to detect by radar.

The profits were put into 142 properties in Lowestoft.

George lived off the rents, but did not declare them to HM Revenue and Customs.

When arrested at her home, customs officers found £1.2m of cash in a safe and £250,000 was stuffed in a holdall under the stairs.

She said she did as she was told by her partner and was not any good at accounting.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7927267.stm

[Eric Mc]

The punishment seems quite light.

I hope some of their properties are being seized in order to recover the unpaid tax.

I would also asume that they will be facing criminal charges for drug smuggling as well.

[anonymous-user]

Money taken under proceeds of crime act?

Did she do any of the smuggling?

[gareth_r]

The boats look like fun though

http://www.snopes.com/photos/boats/drugrunner.asp

Edited by gareth_r on Friday 6th March 13:01

[FourWheelDrift]

Stupid people.

Ex-Soviet block diesel-electric submarines are the way to do it these days - http://www.projectboats.com/whiskeysub.html

[Jasandjules]

Two years suspended for that? Surely POCA means the houses can be taken by HMG? And the cash, I'm going to hazard a guess that they can't show a legitimate trail for it.

[tenohfive]

POCA (Proceeds of crime act) will be used to recover the stuff if it can be proved it was criminal property i.e gained illegally.

And RIBs (rigid hulled inflatable boats) are fking great fun, did a course to learn to drive them about 7 or 8 years ago and loved every minute. Not as much fun as dory's, but still a proper giggle.

One day when the missus and I move to the coast to bring up sprog's I'll treat myself to one.

[Disco_Dale]

Jasandjules said:

Two years suspended for that? Surely POCA means the houses can be taken by HMG? And the cash, I'm going to hazard a guess that they can't show a legitimate trail for it.

The cash I think they've likely had, but that was probably small change compared to what was stashed properly beforehand.
My guess is that was the latest deposit waiting to be paid squirreled away.

A low level dealer right at the other end of the supply chain could expect a heavier sentence than she got, it's pathetic.

[mattley]

But the sentence in nothing to do with drugs, it's about rental income from property. Nothing to do with the boat business.

[Jasandjules]

mattley said:

But the sentence in nothing to do with drugs, it's about rental income from property. Nothing to do with the boat business.

Boat business used to supply what I presume are fairly modified boats to drug dealers....... Sooooo, realistically, all the money could be POCA except what was going through the books..