HM Revenue & Customs has released details of a £250 million VAT fraud that generated its money from the supposed import and export of mobile phones. A number of people were arrested in July 2003, with the first sentences being handed down in 2008, although reporting restrictions prevented details of the crimes being published at the time.

Fifteen people have now been sentenced in six separate trials.

Mark Bridge writes:

Flash is dead, HTML5 is the future. Okay, the next stage in the evolution of the mobile browser isn’t that clear – but a restructure at Adobe has pretty much marked the end of mobile Flash development.

Nigel Cranswick, a former policeman from South Yorkshire, has been jailed for over ten years today for his part in an attempted £330 million VAT fraud. He and six others, including his sister and brother-in-law, were caught by investigators from HM Revenue & Customs.

They’d set up a business called Ideas 2 Go Ltd and falsely claimed they’d generated billions of pounds in turnover selling mobile phones and computer software.

The nine men jailed in December 2010 and January 2011 after a £17 million ‘missing trader’ VAT fraud have been joined by four more men.

A further defendant has been charged and is due to stand trial next year.

Five men from London, Berkshire and Gloucester have been jailed this week for a total of 37½ years after failing to pay £140 million tax in a 'missing trader' VAT fraud. The investigation began in October 2005 and resulted in a series of court cases that started last December.

Four of the men each set up their own limited company, most of which only traded for a few weeks, while the fifth dealt with administration.

Mark Windle, head of marketing at OpenCloud, predicts that this year’s reduction in the number of traditional telecoms operators in some countries will provide an opportunity for other operators to innovate and capture market share in 2016.

He says next year will be a year of rapid change for telecoms… whether it’s MVNO disruption, competitive tariff pricing or simply defence from the ‘dark art’ of hacking.

Mark Bridge writes:

The most memorable moments in life often go unrecorded. You don't have your camera in your hands. Your finger is still hovering over the 'pause' button on your audio recorder. Or you were simply too busy experiencing whatever was happening. It's all about the one that got away.

That's where Kapture can help.

Mark Bridge writes:

James Rosewell shows me a colourful roll of paper that's the width of an iPhone but well over three metres long. When I look closer, I can see it's a printed copy of the Wall Street Journal's mobile website. That's a lot of scrolling to do... and a pretty unfriendly user experience for anyone reading the news online. Why does it work so badly?

We start this week's podcast with Tesco's plans for a Hudl-branded smartphone. Next comes some potentially good news about the 'patent wars' affecting the mobile industry - although there's certainly no sign of a ceasefire.

Later we discuss an announcement from Facebook about its mobile advertising scheme, an unfortunate mistake for O2's Travel service, a new 20 megapixel camera-phone and an automotive investment by Nokia.

In this interview Mark Bridge talks to Jijesh Devan of QuickPlay Media about the opportunities and challenges of bringing video services to smartphones and other internet-connected devices.

Their conversation took place on the QuickPlay stand inside the App Planet area of Mobile World Congress in February.

We have something for everyone in this week's podcast. There's bad news as Samba Mobile closes, bad news as Apple and Samsung suffer product faults... and bad news as wearable devices are criticised for the poor user experience they offer.

Yet there's plenty of good news as well, including the launch of a new UK mobile payment service.

Telefonica sets up its own mobile advertising business, Mozilla puts an interim CEO in place and Nokia suspends sales of its flagship Windows 8.1 RT tablet: all topics for discussion in this week's podcast.

We're also talking about the future growth of Orange Money, EE's online activity, mobile broadband growth and the Loch Ness monster being spotted on Apple iPhones.

When the topics of mobile technology and security are discussed, the conversation can end up focussing on third-party software solutions.

Inside Secure has a different perspective. It's a specialist in embedded security; building protection in from the start. To learn more, Mark Bridge caught up with Loic Hamon, Vice President of Corporate Development at Inside Secure, at the company's hospitality suite during Mobile World Congress.