Limavady man in Iraqi building fraud

A LIMAVADY man who stole over half a million pounds in a VAT fraud linked to a made-up Iraqi building project has been locked up for four and a half years

Mark McAteer, a 22-year-old businessman from the Gortnarney Road near Limavady, ordered equipment and consultancy services from a machinery supply company in Northern Ireland. He claimed to be building water purification plants in Basra and Mosul, Iraq. However, McAteer didn’t have the funds to pay for the goods and services and said he needed invoices in advance in order to get credit letters from the Iraqi Government to fund the multi-million dollar contract. He used the invoices as part of a false VAT refund claim worth a whopping £567,420. John Whiting, HMRC’s Assistant Director of Criminal Investigation, said: “McAteer ordered goods and services with the deliberate intention of using them to generate refunds of VAT he wasn’t entitled to. He manipulated a system that exists for the benefit of legitimate companies with the sole purpose of lining his own pockets. He knew he was breaking the law, yet chose to overlook it for the opportunity of making what he wrongly assumed would be easy money.”