Extradited tax fugitive gets eight years in prison

 

Sarah Panitzke, 48, from York, went missing in 2013 while on trial for her part in a £1bn mobile phone tax scam. She became the UK’s most wanted woman after fleeing to Spain while on trial for money laundering and has been jailed for eight years after she appeared at Kingston Crown Court in London after being extradited back to the UK.

She had initially been charged with conspiracy to acquire criminal property in relation to her role in multi-million-pound VAT fraud in 2010 and was found guilty in her absence in2013.

Judge Sarah Plaschkes QC, said she should start immediately the prison sentence after her appearance in court and said “That sentence will start today now that you have been extradited to this country”.

Panitzke, who was part of a scheme that laundered cash through offshore accounts, was told she would spend at least four years behind bars before she was eligible for parole. A £2.4m confiscation order was also made against her in 2016. She was given three months to pay the full amount or face an additional nine years in prison. No money was ever been paid against this, leaving the amount including interest, standing at £3.4m in May 2022. The interest continues to accrue at a rate of £538 a day. Tom Dowdall the National Crime Agency international deputy director said Pantizke had been on their most wanted list for a decade and her jailing was the result of  “years of hard work”.

Simon York Director of the HMRC fraud investigation service said: “ Panitzke thought she had put herself outside of the reach of HMRC, but through our work with UK Law enforcement and international partners we have tracked down another tax fugitive. No tax criminals is beyond our reach”.

They said Panitzke and her 17 co-conspirators were given sentences totalling 135 years for the fraud.

She spent nine years on the run before being arrested while dog walking in Santa Barbara, Tarragona, in Feburary.ss