This article was written and contributed by Simon Lazarus who writes for a number of national and international publications.

For luxury watch retailer 49 year old Mark Gibson, it’s more a case of doing time rather than thinking about it after his recent fraudulent activities. The ex-retailer managed to con HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) out of a staggering £271,023 at the back end of last year.

Mark Gibson

For his sins, Gibson has now been sentenced to two years and nine months for buying and selling high end Rolex and Cartier watches from the comfort of his own home near Dorset.

It turns out that he was fabricating invoices in order to reclaim VAT from the HMRC. This has certainly been a taxing issue as the majority of the timepieces Gibson acquired were actually never bought.

It seems he had the chutzpah to request VAT repayments via the authorities despite the fact he was never entitled to a single penny!

According to the official HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) site, Mark Gibson was trading and fully VAT registered in the spring of 1990 as a watch supplier.

HM Customs began their enquiries after Gibson was connected to a related VAT swindle in April 2012 to the tune of £1.6 million.

Jonathan Shohet

At the time, antique watch dealer Jonathan Uri Shohet was put away for eight years after his deception. He used a collection of pinched invoice books as well as several forged statements to claim his own VAT booty from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

As for Gibson, whilst residing in Ferndown close to Dorset, he was sneakily making a number of bogus claims on VAT repayments for almost two years between August 2008 and July 2010.

Once he procured watches in the UK he immediately sold them abroad to numerous customers whilst reaping the VAT rewards from the tax authorities.

But thanks to a timely intervention by the police, Gibson was stopped and later arrested in May 2012 at a rented home where, despite the size of the fraud, he was struggling to make ends meet.

On his appearance at court, he made a plea of not guilty in his ruse to cheat the tax system out of more than £270,000.

However, this didn’t detract from the seriousness of the situation and Gibson was later found guilty by an independent jury at Bournemouth Crown Court.

The judge in session Peter Johnson declared that, “It was a sophisticated and professionally planned fraud, executed over a period of time.”

David Margree who is assistant director of criminal investigation at HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) added: “Gibson had traded legitimately, but greed led him to commit fraud. Those criminals who think that this type of crime doesn’t harm anyone should think again. Our message is clear – it is simply not acceptable to steal from the tax system and, ultimately, every honest taxpayer in the UK.”

Crime did not pay in this instance but it shows the desire to profit from one’s own greed. Time eventually ran out for Gibson, but he won’t be the first or the last to try and outrun the powers that be.