Gang removed dye from red diesel to sell on to motorists on the black market

A CRICKLEWOOD man has been sentenced for his role in a �10million fuel duty and money laundering scam.

Gerald Anthony Dunphy, 31, of Anderson Court in Whitefield Avenue, received a year long suspended jail sentence and was ordered to carry out 150 hours community service at Liverpool Crown Court.

The court heard Dunphy and Tammy Ann Fernie from Edgware, laundered the money made by the fraud in which the dye used in red diesel was removed so it could be sold on to motorists.

In the UK red diesel is strictly for use in agricultural and construction vehicles including tractors and cranes, and some boats, as it is exempt from fuel duty.

The diesel is purposely dyed to prevent crooks from selling it on to drivers on the black market.

Fernie also received a year long suspended jail sentence and was ordered to carry our 100 hours community service.

Stephen William Boyd, 45, was sentenced to 20 months for laundering the proceeds of crime and Edward Joseph Kennedy, 58, was sentenced to 12 months, suspended for two years, and ordered to carry out 150 hours community service for conspiring to fraudulently evading excise duty.

Both men are from Northern Ireland.

Mike O’Grady from Her Majesty’s Revenues and Custom, who headed the investigation, said: “Fuel laundering is unregulated and dangerous but this gang was motivated solely by greed and personal gain, costing us all, as taxpayers, millions of pounds in stolen revenue.

“Cheap, laundered fuel is no bargain. It undercuts honest businesses and has devastating effects on the environment when the toxic by-products of the laundering process are dumped in the countryside.”