UK tax department publishes photographs of tax dodgers

Tax dodgers in the UK beware: Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has decided to name and shame individuals avoiding at least £25,000 tax by publishing a rogues' gallery of top tax criminals on image hosting site Flickr.

HMRC has posted images of 32 tax cheats, ranging from cigarette and alcohol smugglers to a 'garlic smuggler,' who were sentenced to a total of 155 years and 10 months in jail in 2012 for tax dodging offences.

''Most people play by the rules and pay what they owe, but HMRC is cracking down on those who don't,'' said David Gauke, executive secretary to the treasury. ''We hope that publishing these pictures will help get across that it always makes sense to declare all your income, and tax dodgers are simply storing up trouble for the future.''

Among those whose pictures were published was Murugasan Natarajan, who jumped bail before being tried and sentenced to six years in jail for dodging £2 million of import duty. Natarajan claimed to be importing ginger, which has lower duties but was in fact importing garlic, which attracts higher duties.

Many of those whose images were published in the rogues' gallery were of South Asian origin. They included a gang, comprising Sandeep Singh Dosanjh, Navdeep Singh Gill and Ranjot Singh Chahal, who set up a chain of bogus companies to trade fraudulently in EU emissions allowances or carbon credits.

The tax at stake was £38 million in VAT. Dosanjh was sentenced to 15 years in jail, Gill 11 years and Chahal nine years.