An Essex man has been jailed for almost five years after fraudulently claiming more than £1m in Gift Aid in connection with a sports club he set up.
Abdul Muttakin Robbani, 54 and of Chelmsford, was this week sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court to four years and eight months in prison after admitting submitting 60 false claims to HM Revenue & Customs.
Robbani, who submitted the claims between March 2020 and May 2021, received £708,750, using the money to pay off “significant personal and family debts”, according to the Crown Prosecution Service.
This included mortgages on two properties in Chelmsford and Ipswich that were subsequently transferred into his wife’s name.
The false claims stated that 716 individuals had donated between £5,000 and £10,000 to RMI Club, an organisation Robbani registered as a community amateur sports club in 2019.
Robbani told HMRC that these individuals had been recruited through a marketing survey called the Sigma Social Impact Programme which was based around a cryptocurrency 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,” the CPS said.
“HMRC banking analysis revealed that, prior to the fraud, several of these accounts held a balance of just £1.”
Investigators from HMRC concluded the XO cryptocurrency token represented no objective value after interviewing donors, obtaining bank records and consulting with a cryptocurrency expert.
“HMRC obtained an account freezing order and was able to forfeit £215,000,” the CPS said.
“A further £485,750 was traced to Robbani’s personal bank account. Confiscation proceedings are ongoing.”
Robbani was also disqualified from acting as a company director for 15 years and the court has imposed a serious crime prevention order for five years to start when he is released from jail.
The court heard Robbani had previous convictions of deception and forgery in the 1990s, and the Charity Commission in 2011 removed a charity he chaired from the register following serious governance failings.
Emma Beazley, specialist prosecutor for the CPS, said Robbani 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.
“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,” Beazley said.
“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.”