A FORMER Jersey accountant who is alleged to have been behind one of Australia’s largest tax scams is believed to have been arrested on the Swiss-Italian border.
THE alleged mastermind of a $2.2 billion tax evasion scam, which fleeced up to $34 million from Paul Hogan and led to the jailing of music boss Glenn Wheatley, has been arrested in Italy — 13 years after he fled Australia.
The Advertiser HAVE exclusively revealed – THE FOLLOWING NEWS
….TAX cheat Philip Jepson Egglishaw was detained by Italian authorities after he triggered an INTERPOL Red Notice issued by Australian officials for fraud and money laundering.
Egglishaw, described as a “dapper bowler-hat Englishman”, had been living in Geneva despite repeated requests from Australian authorities to the Swiss government to have him arrested on an outstanding 2008 warrant.
Accountant Egglishaw was the focus of Project Wickenby — Australia’s biggest tax evasion investigation — which led to the conviction of 46 people and collected $2.2 billion in tax liabilities.
Egglishaw had left Switzerland to spend a few days in Italy, but was arrested as he tried to leave.
The Attorney-General’s Department confirmed that “a man was arrested by Italian authorities on 3 May” and was to face prosecution in Australia for financial crimes.
“As the matter is now before the courts of a foreign country, it would not be appropriate to comment further,” a spokesman said.
Hogan’s link to the activities of the 63-year-old accused fraudster can be traced back to a raid on Egglishaw’s luxury Melbourne hotel room in 2004 when Federal Police seized his laptop.
It contained extensive lists of his Australian clients, including Hogan and his partner John Cornell, who had allegedly used offshore trusts to minimise paying tax.
For almost a decade the Australian Crime Commission and the ATO have struggled to track the meandering trail across the world of the proceeds of Hogan’s three Crocodile Dundee films, in the vicinity of $90 million.
The Australian Taxation Office had reportedly claimed Hogan owed about $150 million in tax on money squirrelled away offshore by Egglishaw’s tax advisory firm, Strachans SA.
Entertainment guru Wheatley was also a Strachans SA client and caught the attention of the ATO. In 2007, Wheatley became the first major scalp in a tax fraud inquiry, jailed for a minimum of 15 months after pleading guilty to avoided $318,092 in tax by hiding money in Strachans SA and engaging in bogus offshore transactions to conceal his income.
“I am ashamed with what I have done,” Wheatley. “It was something that I have regretted for a long, long time and I am ashamed for what I have brought onto my family.”
Then in October 2010 Federal Court hearing in Sydney, Paul Hogan ’s US lawyer Craig Emanuel said $US34 million was being held by Strachans SA in Switzerland.
It was the last remaining holding from the Crocodile Dundee royalties and Strachans had not given Hogan actual bank records.
Hogan and Cornell insisted their tax structures were legal and based on sophisticated advice by tax lawyers.
In November 2010, the ACC announced it had dropped its criminal investigation of Hogan and Cornell. Hogan and Cornell then made no-admissions settlement with the ATO — estimates in Canberra heard this week it was likely Hogan had paid “tens of millions” of dollars to settle the case.
Wickenby has since been replaced by the Serious Financial Crime Taskforce.
The US has also reportedly been chasing Mr Egglishaw, alleging he has been selling his tax evasion scheme there and in the UK and Europe.
Last week Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan, under questioning about the Hogan case, told an estimates committee that if people weren’t taken to court they sometimes paid substantial amounts to settle.
“Sometimes substantial amounts, in the tens of millions, are paid, and that covers the liability,” he said, and implied that was the case with Hogan.
On morning television this week Hogan said it was an “absolutely lie” that he had paid. He insisted he actually “got money out of” his dealings with the ATO.
In 2013 Mr Egglishaw spoke about the case for the first time, saying he had acted legally for various Australian clients.
“The accusations made in the media this week (that Hogan’s lawyers were chasing a missing $34 million) … are completely false and vehemently denied,” he said.
The Advertiser could not contact Hogan for further comment.
After Wickenby was wound up in 2015, the Australian Crime Commission’s national manager for operations and investigations Richard Grant said they weren’t giving up on the hunt for Mr Egglishaw.
Source – click here
THE JEP REPORT
Philip Jepson Egglishaw, a former Hautlieu pupil, has been wanted by the country’s authorities who claim that he set up a US$300 million network of tax avoidance schemes and lured prominent Australians into them for more than three years.
In 2013, an international arrest warrant was issued for the 63-year-old after it was claimed that Mr Egglishaw stole $34 million which was being held in a Swiss bank account for actor Paul Hogan, star of 1980s film Crocodile Dundee.
Mr Egglishaw has been living in Switzerland and it is thought that local law enforcement had been unwilling to execute the warrant.
However, it has been reported that on 3 May, after trying to leave the country to go on holiday in neighbouring Italy, he triggered an Interpol ‘Red Notice’, notifying border officials of his wanted status.
Mr Egglishaw was involved in Strachans, an accounting partnership which was previously based in Jersey before relocating to Switzerland.
In 2004, while on a visit to Melbourne to meet clients, his laptop – containing details of transactions and offshore trusts – was seized by police, allowing authorities to launch Operation Wickenby, which became one of Australia’s largest tax fraud probes.
The high-profile inquiry has so far reclaimed about 2.3 billion Australian dollars in tax liabilities and led to the conviction of 46 people.
Read more here
Loading...