IAN LEAF did not want much. Just the multimillion-pound mansion on the shores of Lake Geneva, the helicopter to ferry his four children to school, the fleet of cars and the ski chalet.

He achieved all that but not through honest work. Leaf, 52, made it into the ranks of the very rich by conning the British taxman out of £55 million, almost half of which has never been traced.

Yesterday a judge at Southwark Crown Court sentenced him to 12½ years on 13 charges of fraudulent trading between 1991 and 1996.

Judge David Higgins told Leaf that the fraud he had perpetrated was on a truly massive scale. “Of its type, it may well be without precedent and in the pantheon of crime it ranks very high indeed. You have, by dishonest means, deprived the Inland Revenue of approximately £55 million, out of which you have made a net profit of approximately £22 million.” Revenue & Customs experts spent three years investigating Leaf’s complex fraud, which involved real and bogus companies in Britain and abroad, before they were able to move against him.

Investigators called it the “largest swindle of its kind”. Leaf systematically evaded paying corporation tax when buying and selling companies, produced thousands of fictitious documents, created a bank on the Pacific atoll of Nauru and concocted an array of fictitious profits and imaginary expenses.

Leaf, who had been married three times, was first arrested in 2000 when he flew by private jet into Ciampino airport, near Rome, and was detained after action by Interpol.

The fraudster, who the judge said was “entirely without remorse”, was granted bail and fled to Switzerland.

He lived there with his family in a ten-bedroom mansion set in 15 acres on the shores of Lake Geneva. There he kept his fleet of Rolls-Royces, Porsches and Aston Martins – his wife, Caroline, had a £90,000 Porsche Carrera. He also had a chalet in the Swiss ski resort of Verbier and would regularly spend £300 a head eating at the Rosalp restaurant, alongside royalty and celebrities.

But, in 2004, the good life started to end. He was arrested in July last year before being extradited in November. Last month he was convicted by a jury at Southwark Crown Court after a nine-week trial.

Judge Higgins told him: “In effect, for many years you have been a constant criminal.” The crimes were particularly pernicious “and strike at the very heart of the financial structure on which social order so strongly depends”.

The judge said that every law-abiding citizen was a victim. He could find no explanation for the fraud. “You simply appear to have taken a decision, for financial gain, to jettison all relevant principles, scruples and morals and acquire as much of other people’s money as you could,” the judge said.

Outside court, Roger Neville, the case officer, said: “Leaf knowingly and deliberately set out to commit a multimillion-pound fraud, which turned out to be the largest of its kind.”

During the trial the jury heard that at the centre of Leaf’s dishonesty were 13 “subsidiary” companies he had bought from parent concerns in fields such as construction, finance and trading.

Using his Allied Corporation Bank, which existed in name only on a Pacific tax haven, he first pretended his newly acquired businesses had taken out vast loans. The fictitious interest payments the loans generated were then offset against tax, which he illegally claimed back, amounting to £55 million.

Leaf’s confiscation hearing will be held next year. He could receive a further jail sentence if he does not pay back the money made by fraudulent means.

THE RECIPE FOR MASSIVE FRAUD

• Leaf bought companies that owed millions in tax and were able to pay it
  
  
• He wrote off the tax debt against fictional losses at other companies, and created documents showing they owed millions to a fictional bank registered in Nauru — controlled by him
  
  
• He set off the resulting interest against the tax that he claimed
  
  
• He claimed back tax paid by previous owners as dividends to himself
  
  
• Many companies he bought were subsidiaries of public companies that sought him out

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