Thirteen individuals have been arrested in Romania for a phishing scheme that defrauded HM Revenue and Customs of millions in bogus tax refunds. These suspects, aged 23 to 53, are believed to have stolen personal data to submit fraudulent PAYE claims, VAT repayments, and child benefit payments. The arrests involved over 100 Romanian police officers alongside HMRC investigators. Previously, scammers had compromised approximately 100,000 taxpayer accounts, amounting to £47 million in losses. Ongoing investigations have also led to arrests in the UK related to cyber crime and fraud offences.
These arrests show we work across borders with our international partners to combat tax crime in all its forms. We have a number of live criminal investigations, and we are grateful to our Romanian partners for their support.
This was organized crime phishing for identity data outwith of HMRC systems, so stuff that banks and others will also unfortunately experience, and then trying to use that data to create PAYE accounts to pay themselves a repayment and/or access an existing account.
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