Diamonds, holidays & gold | £8m payroll con sees fraudsters jailed for 22 years

The bosses of a corrupt payroll company that stole millions of pounds of VAT have been jailed for more than 22 years.

West Lothian-based Linear Services handled payroll for 27 employment agencies but didn’t hand over VAT they owed to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) during a two-year fraud.

Graeme Cullen, Leslie Thompson, Graham Newall and Martin Lang ran the firm that charged VAT on invoices totalling £8.8 million between 2015 and 2017. The court heard the gang lived extravagant lifestyles with huge amounts of money spent on expensive homes, holidays, diamonds and even gold bullion.

Thompson is already serving a six-year sentence for his role in an elaborate multi-million-pound tax fraud that led to convictions for a network of 20 corrupt company directors.