Gangsters are moving into white-collar crime after 22 people were jailed for £20.8 million tax fraud

It has been reported that gangsters are moving into white-collar crime after 22 people were jailed for £20.8 million tax fraud.   

1. The fraud’s architects, John Fenton, 66, and Neil Pursell, 60, directors of Winnington Networks Ltd, were each sentenced to nine years.

2. Twenty members of the operation were convicted of money laundering or conspiracy to cheat public revenue, with the final trial concluding in July 2025 at Southwark Crown Court.

3. The case, described as “complex and highly sophisticated” by Judge Dafna Spiro, involved investors “priming the pump” to sustain the fraud, with returns derived from stolen VAT.

4. The conspiracy involved global company networks across the UK, US, Czech Republic, Spain, Cyprus, Canada, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and the Seychelles.

Tommy Adams, 67, a key figure in the notorious Clerkenwell Syndicate alongside his brothers Terry, 70, and Patrick, 69, was allegedly involved in financing a sophisticated £20.8 million tax fraud, signalling a shift by gangsters into white-collar crime.

5. The Clerkenwell Syndicate, known for dominating London’s underworld through extortion, drug dealing, money laundering, and links to at least 25 murders, was connected to this international VAT fraud orchestrated by company directors and accountants between 2011 and 2014.

6. HM Revenue & Customs investigators uncovered Adams’ involvement by bugging a 2013 Manchester hotel meeting, where fraudsters discussed Adams demanding £450,000 he was owed, causing anxiety among co-conspirators wary of upsetting the gangster.

7. The fraud centred on Winnington Networks Ltd in Crewe, Cheshire, which submitted 18 false VAT returns, evading over £20 million by offsetting fake purchases of “voice over internet protocol” technology against taxes on electrical and metal dealings.

Another financier, Warren Bartlett, 51, invested £350,000 and used his company, Bartel Networks, to process £6.5 million of the evaded VAT.

8. Bartlett, previously convicted in 2011 for drug smuggling and money laundering, was jailed for six years and six months in April 2025.

William Lindfield, another conspirator, was convicted of VAT fraud and awaits sentencing in October 2025; he was previously linked to a 2002 blackmail case involving Adams, Paul Stretford (Wayne Rooney’s agent), and Kenny Dalglish.

9. Adams, not prosecuted for the tax fraud, was convicted in 2017 for laundering nearly £250,000, using runners to move cash between Manchester and London, after police bugged Andrews Restaurant in Holborn.

10. He was previously cleared of laundering proceeds from the 1983 Brink’s Mat gold bullion theft.

SOURCE

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14924319/crime-family-helped-finance-20million-tax-fraud-court.html

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