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Saturday, December 4, 2010

Five jailed for £17 million mobile phone VAT fraud

Five men have been jailed this week at Southwark Crown Court for a total of 15 years after a £17 million ‘missing trader’ VAT fraud. A sixth is awaiting sentencing. HM Revenue & Customs conducted a four-and-a-half year investigation that involved mobile phone accessories, SIM cards and digital memory. A further £5 million of VAT claims were stopped, with an additional £300 million planned.

Gary Lampon, Assistant Director of Criminal Investigation for HMRC, said “This was organised fraud on a massive scale used to blatantly fund the extravagant lifestyles of this criminal gang at the expense of the British taxpayer. ‘Missing trader’ fraud is not merely a paper fraud, it is organised crime and we are determined to pursue and bring to justice the criminals behind this type of fraud and confiscate the proceeds of their crimes.”

The gang’s cash proceeds were used to purchase a number of high-value items, including several properties worth over £1 million each, a Rolls Royce Phantom and a Ferrari. Over £8 million of assets have been restrained so far and confiscation proceedings are underway.

Harbinder Singh Samra, described as one of the ‘principal players’ in the fraud and sentenced to four and a half years in prison, was shot four times during the conspiracy while getting into his Rolls Royce outside The Hardwick public house in Walsall, West Midlands.

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Opinion Articles

RIM boss ignores the questions when asked about BlackBerry difficulties and competitors

What went wrong? What did you learn from the iPhone?

Mark Bridge writes:

Live TV and radio interviews. They can be worrying things, even when you’re not expecting to be challenged too much. I know this from experience. So when your company is launching a much-delayed operating system, you’d expect a few difficult questions… and you’d be ready with a response.

The official response of RIM is apparently to ignore the questions.

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Mobile phones transform lives in Africa

Jennifer Lazuta of voanews.com writes:

Rene Mendy, a street vendor in Dakar, has never had enough money to open a bank account. But now, thanks to an emerging mobile phone banking service, he has access to many financial services.

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Last week at The Fonecast: 28th January 2013

Figuring out the figures

Mark Bridge writes:

I didn’t study economics at college, which is probably one of the reasons I have a very simple perspective on quarterly results. As far as I’m concerned, they fall into one of three categories: much as expected, better than expected or worse than expected. Anyway, it’s the time of year when some of the biggest names in the mobile telecoms industry publish their financial results – so here we go.

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Bringing personalised radio to your smartphone

We interview Shankar Meembat about the UTuneMe radio app

Mark Bridge writes:

Targeted advertising on mobile devices is something we’re all getting increasingly familiar with. Visit a web site and there’s a good chance you’ll see an advertisement that’s aimed directly at you, perhaps using information about the sites you’ve previously visited, the type of smartphone you’re using or even your location.

Yet listen to the radio or stream music on your smartphone and that same level of personalisation hasn’t been aavailable. That’s all changing now, with help from a new service called UTuneMe.

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Why Huawei should get out of the mobile handset market

Why Huawei should get out of the mobile handset market

or why Huawei need to spend their £1.6 billion profit on marketing

James Rosewell writes:

Huawei is a company one can’t miss at Mobile World Congress. They bring their own building!  Plus last year a wonderful “Pegasus” flying horse sculpture made using Ascend handsets was proudly displayed next to the main fountain to hail the launch of the Ascend series of handsets.

Huawei has been busy following MWC12. They now run major parts of Everything Everywhere, Three and O2’s network in the UK. On a less positive note they’re not welcome in the US.

But how has the devices side of the business performed?

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Recent Podcasts

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Later in the programme, the team anticipates some of the topics that will be hitting the headlines during 2016.

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Podcast from Mobile World Congress 2015

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We're taking a look back at the biggest mobile industry news stories from February 2015, including allegations that the UK's security service tried to breach SIM card security by hacking into one of the world's biggest SIM producers.

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A month of mobile: O2 counts on 3, Microsoft counts to 10 and Apple counts its profits

Podcast - 30th January 2015

We're back with a month of mobile industry news, including takeover talks and takeover rumours. O2 and Three are said to be discussing a merger... but is there any truth in the suggestions that BlackBerry could be up for grabs?

We also discuss Apple's record-breaking quarterly figures, the highlights of CES and the launch of Microsoft Windows 10, as well as saying farewell to the current version of Google Glass.

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