The Crime Boss and the Doctor Saints and Scroungers

Theft of public money costs the UK taxpayer over £20 billion a year.

This case was one of the biggest cases we've ever had.

It came into the region of about £500,000.

It's money that should be going into the public pot to

spend on essential services.

The victims in this case are the public

and the money could have been used to build schools or fund hospitals.

And throughout the country there are specially trained

investigators making sure that justice is served.

The system cannot be beaten.

They will be held to account at some point.

In this series we meet the men and women across the UK committed

to catching criminals who steal from you and me, the British taxpayer.

But we also hear stories from people who genuinely need

help from public money.

I just didn't know where to turn or what to do.

I just thought I'm just one of them lowlifes who's had an addiction.

And sometimes they don't even realise they are entitled to it.

I didn't know there was anything better out there

until she started at the institute.

Coming up, a serial fraudster steals millions in tax from all of us

in a huge payroll scam...

They thought he was a top-notch businessman

when actually he is a thief and stole tax money.

..a not so single mother who stole public money...

She fraudulently claimed just over £93,000 in state benefits.

..and the struggle of one woman who may never be able to

return to the career she loves.

I just feel for what I lack in my life,

which was really, really painful.

Huge houses, expensive cars, designer clothes

and exclusive jewellery

make up the lives of the rich and famous

and a few criminals in the UK.

If these goods have been purchased with the proceeds of illegal

activity such as tax fraud it's down to financial investigators to

claw that money back.

There are people here trying to make money through serious crime

and that's exactly what we're here to target.

And when the lifestyles of West Midlands organised crime boss

Thomas Scragg and his cronies came to the attention of Superintendent

Shaun Edwards a multimillion-pound tax fraud was uncovered.

There was evidence of that lavish lifestyle.

There was a house with highly specced equipment,

hi-tech equipment, very lavish vehicles outside.

It was the house of a millionaire.

But that millionaire, as we know now, was through

stealing from the taxpayer.

West Mids Police work alongside the Asset Recovery Team who have

seized £126 million worth of goods

from criminals in the past decade.

The Regional Asset Recovery team ethos is effectively to disrupt and dismantle serious

and organised crime groups utilising Proceeds Of Crime legislation

or Criminal Justice Act legislation in order to strip

criminals of their ill-gotten gains.

And stripping these fraudsters of their assets also benefits us,

the taxpayer.

Once the confiscation process has happened

and the auditors have been satisfied then the money effectively

comes back into the public purse, into central government.

When Sergeant Derek Tinsley and his team came up against Thomas Scragg

he certainly appeared to have benefited from his day-to-day activities.

The period of offending was quite short

but the returns on that were very significant,

somewhere in the region of about £38 million that was scammed.

Scragg came to the attention of the police following a tip-off about

a pair of brothers in Wolverhampton, Carl and Anthony Johnson.

The community came to the police with concerns these were two

people who were notorious in the local community.

They were driving around in very flash cars, in Lamborghinis,

and the public said to us. "Look at these two,

"they've got no legitimate income, but they're driving round. It must be crime. Have a look at it."

And that was exactly what we did.

The brothers ran a security company but this didn't seem to be bringing

in much business so the team started looking into their bank accounts.

As the financial investigation developed into the Johnson brothers it was identified that there was a

significant amount of money that they were receiving from the Moya group of companies.

The investigation then focused on the Moya group of companies and it was

identified that Thomas Scragg was one of the directors behind that company.

Therefore we needed to investigate and look at the behaviour

and the criminal activity of Mr Thomas Scragg.

Over a ten-month period the Johnsons had received in the region

of £2.4 million from Scragg's companies, the Moya group.

Money had been transferred to both their personal

and company bank accounts.

So the team needed to establish why Scragg had been paying

the brothers in the first place.

What we found was they were being paid by Thomas Scragg to

provide, inverted commas, "protection" for him

and that's where we started looking more closely at Thomas Scragg

and what was the reason why he needed protection.

When Shaun ran Scragg's name through the police database

he discovered that Scragg had been the victim of a kidnapping.

Kidnapping is a fairly unusual crime although

we do find it's a more common crime between criminals where

criminals will kidnap each other in relation to criminal vendettas.

And that's exactly what it was with Thomas Scragg.

That's why we believe he was kidnapped and why

he therefore employed the Johnson brothers to provide his protection.

As soon as the team started looking seriously at Scragg they quickly

found out that he was already on bail for a huge tax fraud.

On top of that he had a fraud conviction dating back to 2004,

but had escaped jail after giving evidence on his accomplices.

It was this previous form which led the police to take a closer

look at Scragg's activities.

On the face of it Scragg purported to have a legitimate business where

he offered payroll facilities to construction companies to take

away the headaches of paying tax and National Insurance. "You give me a

"sum of money for your workers and I'll pay them and I'll sort out their tax."

But also he falsely purported through people

he worked with that he had a dispensation from Her Majesty's

Revenue And Customs that he could almost put a blanket on expenses

rather than having to claim individual ones.

And this would have been an attractive option for companies to do that.

We actually investigated the Moya group of companies in exactly

the same way as we would anybody else.

It's all about the balance between legitimate

sources of income against illegitimate sources of income.

Moya seemed to be making huge profits and it didn't take

the investigation long to uncover the extent of the new scam.

What Moya were doing in effect was a payroll fraud.

How the whole process of the fraud worked was that the money would come in,

they would actually pay each employee on the minimum wage,

they would then make up their original

wage from out-of-pocket expenses that they never received.

So in effect what Moya were doing was stripping the PAYE,

the National Insurance, from each individual and then retaining that.

The construction workers who'd entrusted Moya to

handle their payroll had no idea Scragg was doctoring

the paperwork to send to HMRC, enabling him

to siphon off money that should have gone to the taxman from their wages.

The impact on the workers from the payroll fraud by not paying

any tax and National Insurance would be that

when the state pension would actually effectively kick in they wouldn't

have paid enough contributions in order to receive a state pension,

or the state pension that they would receive would be far reduced.

Just to put that into context each individual employee was losing

approximately £300 per week.

The deeper the team dug the more they uncovered about Scragg's operation.

The size of Moya Payroll was huge.

There were probably somewhere in the region of about 4,000 to 5,000

employees on the books at any one time.

The sums of money that was passing through the Moya accounts

was in the millions per week.

It was reckoned that Scragg

and his company were making £6 million a year from this scam.

So what was he doing with all this cash?

Scragg, as a result of his payroll scam, had an extremely lavish lifestyle.

High-grade cars, holidays, large house with all the trappings.

So certainly he did lead the lavish lifestyle.

It wasn't just Scragg who was living the high life.

None of the group tried to hide their wealth at all.

The Johnsons were driving round in top-of-the-range cars,

Lamborghinis, and actually at one point they saw a police officer

and said to the police officer, "Who says crime doesn't pay? It does."

The operation focused on Scragg and the Johnson brothers but the

team was aware they needed to spread the net wider.

Thomas Scragg could not have committed this crime on his own.

In actual fact he needed professional people around him

such as lawyers and accountants and other companies

and other businesses in order for him to commit the fraud.

Not only just to commit fraud but also to deal with the money

and the benefit from his criminality.

These associates would have been enlisted to help Scragg find

ways of storing and accessing his money undetected.

Thomas Scragg needed to obtain cash from his bank

account which is in the reverse of trying to layer it.

The money then was followed not only through the Moya companies

but over to a money service bureau whereby he'd laundered

and obtained cash to the tune of something like £4.6 million.

The whole process, who was involved in the laundering process

are as guilty as Scragg, because without professional enablers

then Thomas Scragg wouldn't be able to either obtain or utilise or

extract the cash and his money in the way that he did.

Later, the police have their work cut out proving Scragg's crimes in court.

Scragg all the way through played the part of an innocent, successful businessman.

Now it's time to switch the focus from people who are willing to

steal from all of us to someone who would love to help us all but can't.

Many of us can only dream of doing a job that is satisfying,

rewarding and ultimately makes us happy.

So imagine if you are in a career you love only to have

everything you've worked for cruelly taken away

and your whole life turned upside down in the space of just one day.

6.30 the sight is OK.

At least I was able to make out a bit of things,

but by 8.30, completely blind.

Dr Devaki has been practising as an obstetrician

and gynaecologist for over 20 years delivering babies in many

different hospitals throughout her career.

-Was it always your dream to be a doctor?

-Yes, it was.

And once you got into practising medicine what was

the attraction for you?

The most interesting feature is to deliver a baby, which is really

challenging at times. It's so nice to bring out a new life to the Earth.

You just feel very happy.

-How many babies would you say you've had a hand in delivering?

-Countless.

-If I'm on night on call easily 10 or 12.

-10 or 12 a night?

-Easily, yes.

-So you might have helped deliver tens of thousands of babies?

-Yes.

Really? That many?

What was it like when you first held someone's child in your hands?

It's so nice. The babies... We all like babies, don't we?

But the thing is after that first delivery when I got it,

it feels really good.

You are able to really do... Well,

the lady also pushed, she did her part,

but you also feel like you are helping her to get out the baby.

Without your help definitely things are going to be difficult.

And you've done that tens of thousands of times for different people?

Yes, I have.

Tell me what the situation was when everything changed for you.

That morning I woke up normal. I did my Caesarean section theatre.

After that I have to go to the clinic in the afternoon.

1.30 I'm in the clinic and I discover that I'm not able to read the files.

The file looks blurred to me

so that's the time I discovered there is something wrong with my sight.

When you're saying blurred,

-was it so blurred that you couldn't read it at all?

-Yes.

Even if I take it closer to me it wasn't really getting there.

So I had to ask my specialist nurse to read the files for me.

-That's really scary.

-It is.

When her sight didn't improve a few hours later Devaki knew that something was seriously wrong.

That evening I went to see the physician.

He just had a look and he said, "Your eyes are so inflamed, you are a

"grade 4 papilloedema." Then he told me, "Whatever it is, you just have to come in."

At six o'clock I am in the A & E.

The sight is gradually going down. At 6.30 even a little bit of it is there.

8 or 8.30, by the time I am going to be moved into the ward,

by the time they arranged a bed, completely I'm blind. It's really...

I couldn't believe it.

Devaki was diagnosed with optic atrophy, a condition that left her

with initially swollen and then damaged optic nerves

and crucially an almost complete loss of sight.

I'm going to ask you possibly a difficult question now.

Obviously you've spent your life training, with your medical training,

to get to a very high level where you are able to help

thousands of people have babies and that's been taken away from you.

-I'm not quite sure...

-It was a nightmare really, yes.

-I don't know how I'd cope with that.

-It's so difficult.

There have been days where I am depressed

because on my own I just feel for what I...

what to say, lack in my life, which was really, really painful.

I had to take my time in understanding my limitation,

and to forget about what I cannot do

and I want to find out my skills where I could just continue to

practise health care but in a different form maybe

because obviously without sight you cannot be delivering a baby.

That is very dangerous. So even to accept that fact it took me long.

Devaki had been living off savings that were now running low.

With no realistic chance of returning to the career she had loved

and struggling to cope alone in London she was truly lost.

You're here, you've given so much of your life to helping people

and now it feels like you need a little bit of help just to

get yourself so you are not stuck in your home the whole time,

so you can go out.

Yes, I want to overcome the barriers, but it wasn't easy.

It was so difficult.

Without anyone to care for her

and with no assistance of any kind Devaki contacted

Action For Blind People, who have been helping blind

and partially sighted people for over 150 years.

Independent Living Coordinator Rob Mackenzie recognised

straightaway that Devaki needed help.

'I've been working with Miss Devaki now for the last six, seven months.'

I think disorientated is maybe a good word to use.

She was living outside of London, wasn't too sure what services,

help and support may be available to her.

Devaki had also struggled on her own for two years,

not claiming a penny in benefit, and was in danger of losing her home.

'By the point that she was in touch with us'

and us working alongside her a little while had elapsed

and she was digging into savings so I think it was only just in time that we

were able to support her in applying for the benefits that she needed.

Devaki was rehoused in a suitable property and now receives

Employment Support Allowance, Housing Benefit and Personal Independence Payments.

Once he'd helped her make ends meet Rob was able to start helping

Devaki in other ways.

'Working with any disability is challenging, but in this day

'and age there are means and applications and ways to get by working with a disability.

'Technology is a great help these days and it's improving every year.'

The charity runs a job club where Devaki has access to

state-of-the-art assistive computer technology which may

hopefully get her back on the road to employment.

I was so keen on improving my skills to suit my life as a disabled,

so I just was looking forward to that. I started from scratch.

It took 12 weeks for me to even get the keyboard right

because I had to start touch typing.

'They helped me to do the CV, some of the applications and stuff like that

'and computer skills also.'

Kate, who runs the job club, has been

working regularly with Devaki.

I think Dr Devaki is still adapting to the

changes that she is experiencing.

She was a doctor before and working in a full-time job with other

people, working as part of the team.

That has been taken away from her so it is adapting to changes

and gaining her confidence back.

Devaki now has access to courses and training that previously

she didn't know existed.

If I had not got in touch with them for the access technology

I would have been lost.

I don't know then whether I would have had any help, or not at all.

I'm not sure what would have happened really. I can't think of it.

It's one example of how Devaki is slowly piecing her life back together.

Devaki is overall quite a bubbly, outgoing person

but she did have worry and stress not knowing where, what and how.

'Thankfully with our input she got some direction

'and she's just bubbly all over again.'

We will be here for Mrs Devaki as long as she does need our help,

support or advice.

Happy to help wherever possible.

It's support that everyone hopes will one day result in Devaki

getting the job she deserves.

You've got such a huge wealth of experience and knowledge

and that hasn't changed.

-Taking your sight away doesn't take that away, does it?

-Yes. That's true.

There's got to be a way to use that.

You can't just take unsafe practice because I'm still blind

and I don't want to really put someone's life into risk

because of my desire to get back into practice. That's the thing.

So I have to think of various options.

I have got two options in my head which is going to be learning

management and maybe go for a management job in the field

of Obs and Gynae. I think I would make it successful, you know.

-Devaki, I do wish you all the best.

-Thank you very much.

Whatever happens next it's clear you've given

so much of yourself over the years to help people and it would

only be right that people can give you a bit of a leg up now as well.

Yes. Thank you very much.

There's undoubtedly one thing that Devaki dreams of doing above all others.

I would like to get back to those days.

I want to have a feel of delivering a baby and having the newborn,

the feel of that in my hands really.

Benefits are a hot topic.

Some people think we are too soft as a country

and give hand-outs to people who don't need them.

Others recognise the fact that people quite rightly deserve

a bit of help from time to time. One thing is certain.

There are a tiny number of people who shamelessly lie

and cheat to steal money they don't deserve from the rest of us.

Luckily there are organisations and people dedicated to catching these

scammers and they'll do everything in their power to get them.

The amount of money at the end of the day is irrelevant to us.

We have a job to do and we will do it to the best of our ability.

Neil Osliffe is Hyndburn Council's Fraud Manager

and looks into all allegations of fraud in the area.

I first became involved in the Dawn Wood case in October 2009.

We got a telephone call through our fraud hotline.

'An anonymous referral alleging that Dawn Wood was living with a partner.'

A check of the council systems showed that Dawn was claiming

Income and Housing Benefits but there was something else.

We were aware of Miss Wood because we'd had a report about her

going back to 2004

when she originally claimed with us.

'She made that claim on the basis that she was a single lady with two

'small children and was pregnant at the time

'with a third child on the way.'

A tenancy agreement had been submitted by her to the

Benefits Office, but on that tenancy agreement was a gentleman's

name that had been scored out, which was most peculiar.

The Benefits Office did what they were supposed to do

and they contacted Miss Wood and asked her about this person.

'Miss Wood wrote back in to the office saying she'd never heard

'of this person and presumed it must have been a previous tenant.'

On that basis the claim went ahead into payment.

The name on the tenancy agreement matched the name that had been

given by the anonymous caller as the partner with whom Dawn lived.

It was definitely more than a little bit suspicious.

It was at that point that the case was allocated to

one of my officers to take it up on a full-time basis

and really see what we could find out.

The anonymous tip-off also passed on to the investigating officer

the description of a vehicle that was regularly at the address.

The officer wishes to remain anonymous.

I took a trip out to the address

and spotted that the car was parked outside the property.

So I took details of the registration of the car

and we do have access to get in touch with the police to do checks

on registrations for us in regards to an investigation.

Police checks confirmed the car was registered to the man they

believed to be at the property.

With this evidence it was time to look into

whether the benefits that Dawn was claiming matched her situation.

Obviously we needed to establish if he was working

and they had more income into the property

then there was a chance that they wouldn't be entitled to benefits.

Even though he wasn't under suspicion it was the information

that the team had on Dawn's partner that would strengthen the case.

But they were still a long way from being able to prove it.

In my experience, dealing with a living together case,

they are probably the hardest fraud that the investigating officer

has to deal with and has to investigate.

And that's quite simply

because we're trying to put somebody in somebody else's

property 24 hours for seven days a week, 365 days a year in some cases.

Or in this specific case, going back historically over five years.

It makes the job exceptionally difficult

and we are looking for paper trails.

They started hunting.

I conducted some credit checks on the couple at the address.

These results came back to us

and they showed there was no joint credit files for the couple,

but there was quite a lot in his name including a live bank

account as well.

We knew where he was working.

We'd been in touch with his employers. Dawn Wood was classed

next of kin, the address they held for him was the same as Dawn Wood.

So all the other bits of evidence plus this,

it was all linking together now.

With the case looking strong on paper the team was granted

permission to observe the property under

the Regulation Of Investigatory Powers Act.

Surveillance was conducted on about 20 occasions on the property,

20 separate days, and on 16 of those occasions a male

matching the description

'was seen leaving the property.'

Neil's decision

to put the house under surveillance paid off.

'We interviewed Dawn Wood under caution. I showed her all the evidence.

'She was questioned whether he'd been living with her all this time.'

She said no,

that he was somebody that she'd had a one-night stand with back in 2003.

He didn't move in with her when she first put a claim for benefit.

The fact that she'd mentioned him on the tenancy agreement,

she was asked about that,

'and why she'd put that she wasn't sure who he was,'

and that he was a previous tenant.

She admitted that she lied about that.

One of the pieces of evidence the team had gathered

was from someone with irrefutable ties to the house and the couple.

We had witness statements from the actual landlady of the property

who clearly said in her statement that as far as she was

concerned that they were a couple and that they even went

round on Friday to collect the rent money and that he was paying the rent.

The team also knew that Dawn's suspected partner's name

was on the accounts for various bills at the address,

so they questioned her about both.

It seemed that Dawn was sticking to her story.

Dawn's explanation was that the man wasn't living with her,

but he did stay over

two to three times a week.

She told the officers that he really lived at either his dad's or his

sister's and that he only left this car at Dawn's when he'd had a drink.

She basically told us, and it's what a lot of claimants

use, they said it was a care-of address and he just got his mail sent there.

But we weren't happy with that.

The first interview was suspended

so that the team could investigate Dawn's claims.

When they did Dawn was back for another chance to explain herself.

On the second occasion we put it to her that we'd checked the addresses that she'd provided and we

could find no trace of this resident at either of these addresses.

'She still refused to admit that he was living with her

'and had done at any time.

'And it was at that point that we put the allegation of failing

to notify changes in circumstances

and making false statements to obtain benefit to her.

And that was the end of the interview.

The team then submitted all the evidence to the

Department For Work And Pensions to make a decision on how much

benefit Dawn had falsely claimed.

When the figure came back the scale of Dawn's crime was revealed.

'She fraudulently claimed just over £93,000 in state benefits.'

That's the highest case I've dealt with in my time at Hyndburn Borough Council.

It's the largest fraud I've had the pleasure of dealing with.

Because of the severity of Dawn's case it was referred to

Burnley Crown Court.

She was charged with three counts of section 111A

of the Social Security Administration Act of 1992,

which is dishonestly failing to notify changes in circumstances to gain benefit.

'After a lot of toing and froing she pleaded guilty to all three counts,

'the Housing Benefit, Income Support and Council Tax Benefit charges on all three.'

She was sentenced to six months' imprisonment and she was taken down.

Because of her actions Dawn received little sympathy.

'It was a great result for the council. It made the local papers.'

The size of the overpayment, everybody here at the council

was very happy when sentence was passed on her, to be honest.

But Dawn wasn't going to get away with a prison

sentence by itself. There's the small matter of £93,000.

The money has to be repaid back

and will be repaid back over a period of time.

It will take an awful long time to pay £93,000 back to the state,

but recovery procedures are in process as we speak.

While there is a tiny minority who fund an extravagant

lifestyle by claiming money they're not entitled to from the state,

there are others who work hard to live life in spite of the difficulties they face.

14-year-old Daniel Southall wants to do the same

things as any other teenager, but he's limited by his mobility.

I go to town with my friends, I go to the cinema sometimes.

I have friends around quite often as well.

But Daniel was born with a condition that's affected him

more and more as he's grown up.

It's something his mother, Penny, has struggled with.

Dan's got Duchenne muscular dystrophy which is a degenerative

condition in which the muscles gradually lose power.

When boys, and the very few girls with Duchenne, are born

they appear to be completely normal

'and usually by the time they're in their mid-teens they're using a wheelchair all the time.'

And then the hands and arms will also slowly get weaker.

They used to live until their late teens or early 20s, but now

quite a few of them are making it into their 30s or even beyond,

so it's actually quite difficult to know what the future holds.

We just have to live from day to day.

Every minute the family can spend together is precious.

As Daniel's mobility has degenerated, spending time with his

two younger brothers Tom and Jack has become a bit of a challenge.

It was sort of taking the edge really off some of the things

we used to do together and it would mean there were some things

we couldn't do at all which really wasn't very nice for him.

Daniel receives benefits that enable the family to deal with

everyday costs. But what he really needed was specialised equipment.

This was something the NHS couldn't provide. The family needed help.

I actually first heard about Caudwell Children in 2007.

They fund both equipment grants and holidays for kids with

disabilities, particularly life-limited children like Dan.

Penny had heard about a wheelchair that would greatly improve

Daniel's quality of life by allowing him to stand upright.

Penny began fundraising and wrote to the charity to ask for some

help to raise the £18,000 they needed.

I was absolutely over the moon

when I got a letter to say that they would fund 80% of the chair.

I just screamed. I felt as though I'd won a competition.

With this help and donations from relatives,

friends and other charities the family was able to finally

afford the chair they hoped would bring them all together.

So the difference it's made to us as a family has been huge.

It's just like any other family being out together.

Everyone can just do their own thing at their own pace

and we can have such a good time together. It is just priceless really.

For Daniel the support of those around him

and his new chair means that he can now have the independence he needs.

'In the future I'm most looking forward to just being able to'

do more things from now on, now that I've got this chair.

'It just helps me get around from day to day.

'If I didn't have it I'd just be sitting in my bed all day.

'It just makes everything so much easier on a daily basis.'

It's really changed my life a lot.

But now we'll move away from those in need to people who lie

and cheat to bleed money from the state.

In Birmingham Derek Tinsley of the West Midlands Regional Asset Recovery Team

was working on the case of Thomas Scragg.

He was suspected of stealing an estimated £6 million

of taxpayers' money in a complex payroll scam.

The team had established both how Scragg's fraud worked

and how he was laundering his money.

It was now time to start taking action.

It became very apparent exactly what the criminality was

and what was going on.

We then set about covertly obtaining restraint orders in order to

freeze his assets.

With these measures in place came the moment that

Superintendent Shaun Edwards had been waiting for.

We felt we had enough to serve a warrant on his house.

Obviously we don't want to cause distress to the family

because people are still innocent till proven guilty,

'so we do it in a polite manner, but in a firm manner as well.

'So we made sure we searched the whole house.

'We would have taken away documents.

'We took away some of the sporting memorabilia that we found there'

as evidence of what he'd been spending his money on,

taking photographs, videos.

It is our one chance to gather all that evidence.

Finally with Scragg captive Shaun had the chance to question him.

Scragg was interviewed under caution as part of the arrest.

He gave the impression that he was a successful businessman

and there was nothing wrong with what he was doing.

But the police didn't agree.

After serving warrants on various addresses Scragg

and another 12 co-defendants were arrested

and charged with conspiracy to cheat Her Majesty's Revenue And Customs.

For Scragg this came on top of the fraud

charges from 2002 to 2007 for which he was awaiting trial.

And the total figure he was estimated to have stolen was

a staggering £38 million.

Once we had all the evidence we felt we were

in a really strong position to present that evidence in court.

Quite a complex fraud that he ran but we needed to break it down

and present it as clearly

as possible so that the jury could understand exactly what Scragg had done.

In November 2010 Scragg was finally brought to trial.

Thomas Scragg was charged with conspiracy to cheat the HMRC

when he came here to Birmingham Crown Court.

We had a lot of evidence in relation to his scheme.

We had evidence from workers,

'the fact that they didn't incur those expenses.

'We had evidence from his company,

'the fact that his company had a computer program which was

'purely designed to maximise the amount of expenses they claimed,'

and to minimise the amount of tax they paid, ie they'd pocket that tax

and use it for their own means.

But there were no guarantees that Scragg would be found guilty

and his brazen attitude to stealing taxpayers' money was

reflected in court.

During the trial Scragg very much all the way through played

the part of an innocent, successful businessman.

In fact he actually lauded his role.

To quote him he said, "David Beckham is Golden Balls,

"I'm the Golden Balls of Moya." He actually thought that he was a

top-notch businessman when actually he's a thief who stole tax money.

The trial of Thomas Scragg

and 12 of his associates from Moya lasted four months and at the

end of a very complex process the verdict was finally delivered.

The jury after their deliberations came back

and they found Thomas Scragg

and the other directors guilty of cheating

Her Majesty's Revenue And Customs, the actual charge that they were indicted with.

After five years spent nailing Scragg it was now down to the judge

to decide on his fate.

The judge during his sentence of Scragg reflected

the seriousness of the offence.

He sentenced him to a totality

of 17 years in prison for his scam.

I think it reflects the seriousness of what Thomas Scragg did,

stealing money from the public purse.

We were pleased with the sentence and it did reflect

the seriousness of the offending,

but what we wanted to do was put some of that money back

that he'd stolen from the public purse, back to HMRC

to be spent on public services like it should be.

So our investigation didn't finish there.

And the Asset Recovery Team were determined to make sure

Scragg paid back what wasn't his.

As a result of the confiscation process approximately

£1 million has been recovered from Thomas Scragg.

And Derek is not finished yet.

There is more cash still to be had

and the confiscation process is still ongoing and I am confident

that there is still more money to be recovered from this crime.

And in July 2012 it was the notorious Johnson brothers' turn to

go up in front of a judge.

The Johnsons at court were found guilty subsequently of money

laundering and they were both sentenced to two years and nine months

and again with them, though we were pleased with the sentence, we really wanted

to get some of the money that they'd received back into the public purse.

The Johnsons were ordered to pay back

almost £340,000 on top of assets already seized and in total,

Thomas Scragg and his co-defendants were hit with confiscation orders of more than £30 million.

When the police raided Scragg

and the Johnsons' addresses they

took away anything of value that could have been bought with stolen cash.

Today at Wilsons Auctions in County Antrim Peter Johnston is

overseeing the sale of some of the Johnson brothers' seized property

and the proceeds will be used to pay off part of their confiscation orders.

We actually have three auctions on tonight.

We have cars downstairs, 200 cars to go through,

and a property auction on downstairs also.

But this is the hall we're going to keep the memorabilia.

Some of Scragg's possessions sold here in September 2013,

making over £150,000.

Asset Recovery Manager Aidan Larkin handles all the items that

come to the auction house from police seizures

and knows Scragg and the Johnsons' property very well.

In these cases, your sort of stereotypical proceeds of crime

cases, it's sports memorabilia.

So in this case connected to the Scragg and Johnson brothers

we have some signed memorabilia from Wayne Rooney and a particularly nice

Joe Louis championship belt complete with certificates of authenticity.

So these things actually adorned the walls of the various people's

houses or bars or businesses.

2,000...

The brothers had a keen interest in sporting memorabilia

and it was one of the things they'd spent bundles of stolen cash on.

There's so much of it, it means that the private individual can come along

and buy one piece, or the collector can buy a complete set of pieces.

It's the sheer volume of the items in one room at the one time that makes it interesting.

Online at £100, bidding...

And it's not only sporting memorabilia that is up for grabs.

So some of the jewellery pieces that are up for auction

tonight from the Scragg case. Some diamond-encrusted bracelets,

some lovely pocket watches, even a Krugerrand coin,

a solid gold Krugerrand coin, across into some pretty fancy

Franck Muller diamond-encrusted watches and your standard Rolexes,

if you can call them standard.

So there's been quite a bit of interest in the jewellery lots tonight.

Every lot that sells tonight will contribute to the

hundreds of thousands of pounds that the Johnsons have to

pay as a result of their confiscation orders.

And as the bids come in thick and fast each one is adding funds to the public purse.

This lot, 156, Pele top, always popular, 100 bid, 120,

120 bid, the Pele signed top, 120, all out, 120 bid, at 140 now,

140 bid, 160 bid, hall bidder

at £160, online bid at 180, 180 for the Pele top, 180 bid,

200, at 200, selling at left of me at £200.

Hall bidder, 20, 220, 220 for Pele, at 220, what do you think, 240 bid,

240 bid, bidding left then at £240, only at 240 bid.

He's out. At 240 in the hall...

Siobhan is one of the bidders going home happy

as she picks up a shirt signed by football legend Pele.

My husband is an avid football supporter of any team whatsoever,

'but Pele is one of his favourites. It's for his birthday which is coming up in July here'

so it will be a nice present I think.

Pele's signed shirt may well have been one of the Johnsons'

favourite possessions, but here it's simply lot 156.

I'm here at a legitimate auction

so whatever is here is here for someone to buy,

in which case that person just happens to be me,

so I don't have any inhibitions about it at all.

I bought what I liked quite simply. They shouldn't have these things in their possession to start with,

'particularly if they've obtained them in the way that they have,'

but on the same token it is great that they are coming back

into circulation for people who are legitimate buyers who can be

proud of their purchase for the right reasons.

After 185 lots the Johnsons' jewellery, memorabilia

and other items will all be going to new homes.

It went OK.

As we thought any of the lots that were endorsed to the

actual individuals, to the Scraggs or to the Johnsons, were tough,

because they were in the pictures.

But we got bids, we got them sold.

Any of the items that were just signed by the stars sold well.

Plenty of bids on those.

And the art et cetera and the jewels et cetera sold particularly well

so all in all not a bad night.

The important bit is getting the money back into the public purse

so hopefully the authorities will be pleased with the result.

In total that figure is £80,000 of which the Johnson brothers

will receive exactly, well, nothing.

And their prized possessions, well, they are gone too.

The Johnsons' confiscation orders meant that the cars and houses

they so proudly bragged about were taken off them along with everything else.

And the same can be said for arch scrounger Thomas Scragg

who's also got years of his sentence still to serve.