Corrupt Tax Officer Jailed for Stealing £211K from UK Taxpayers

Shameful abuse of trust: HMRC officer Mohammed Daar was jailed after his 'sustained and sophisticated' fraud was exposed. The chilling motive is revealed.

A Bradford tax officer who exploited his privileged HMRC access to siphon more than £211,000through falsified taxpayer records has been jailed for three years after admitting a sustained and sophisticated fraud lasting almost three years.

Mohammed Daar, 36, a customer service consultant within HMRC’s personal tax operations department, used his unique PID login to covertly access internal systems outside his remit, altering 101 taxpayer records and generating false mileage repayments paid into 66 bank accounts linked either to himself or to individuals acting under his direction. Prosecutors told Bradford Crown Court that Daar, motivated by gambling, drug use and mounting personal debt, became “the leading player” in a planned operation designed to create distance between HMRC systems and the proceeds of his offending.

The court heard that Moosa Hajat and Arslan Ahmed, who each received fraudulent repayments totalling several thousand pounds, entered money-laundering arrangements with Daar and transferred the funds back to him minus a small fee. Neither man had any legitimate reason to receive the payments. The fraud unravelled when HMRC received a query concerning a refund that had never been submitted, prompting an internal check that traced the false claim to Daar’s PID and exposed wider manipulation of records.

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Daar declined to answer questions during interview, and both Hajat and Ahmed also made no comment when arrested. All three later entered guilty pleas. In mitigation the court was told Daar expressed genuine shame for abusing his position of trust, though the planned nature and duration of the offending placed it in a serious bracket of workplace dishonesty.

Sentencing him, Judge Roger Thomas KC said there was “no alternative to immediate custody”, noting the repeated misuse of privileged systems and the breadth of accounts used to recycle the criminal proceeds. Hajat, 30, and Ahmed, 32, each received 12-month community orders and must complete 180 hours of unpaid work. A Proceeds of Crime hearing is listed for 21 May next year.