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A UK man has been jailed for four years and eight months after inventing hundreds of charitable donations to fraudulently claim £708,750 from the government through the Gift Aid scheme. Abdul Muttakin Robbani, 54, from Chelmsford, submitted 60 false claims through his organisation, RMI Club, naming 716 people as donors despite them never having made the contributions. Alongside his four-year-and-eight-month prison sentence, Robbani was disqualified from acting as a company director for 15 years.
Many of those named had only completed online surveys for small payments and did not know the organisation, according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Robbani used the proceeds to pay off mortgages and personal and family debts. The money obtained through the scheme was used to settle significant personal and family debts. Robbani used the proceeds to pay off mortgages on two properties in Chelmsford and Ipswich. Both properties were subsequently transferred into his wife’s name. The court also imposed a Serious Crime Prevention Order lasting five years, which will begin after his release from prison.
HMRC’s banking analysis found that several of the accounts involved had balances of just £1 before the fraud took place. The investigation began in June 2021 when HMRC’s compliance team identified concerns about the claims.
Steve Doyle, Assistant Director at HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service, said: “Robbani stole money that was meant to support genuine charities and instead used it to pay off mortgages and debts.” Investigators also examined the cryptocurrency scheme associated with the claims. A cryptocurrency expert commissioned during the investigation concluded that Robbani’s XO token had no objective value. The matter was subsequently referred to HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service, which interviewed a sample of the people named as donors and obtained banking records to establish how the money had moved.