Treasury written question – answered at on 17 July 2014.
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what change there has been in the level of fuel laundering and organised crime in border areas of Northern Ireland over the last five years..
HMRC does not measure the different forms of fuel fraud such as fuel laundering. HMRC does measure the tax gap for fuel, published in the document at the following link. In Northern Ireland (NI) this has in the past included cross border shopping but in October 2013 HMRC for the first time published an estimate of the illicit market share for fuel in Northern Ireland for the period 2011-12, at 12-13% for diesel and negligible for petrol.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/measuring-tax-gaps-tables
HMRC contribute and support the multi-agency approach to organised crime in NI as detailed in the Organised Crime Strategy 2014 published by the Department of Justice NI and reproduced in the following link:
HMRC fights fraud on a wide range of fronts, from special units performing thousands of roadside checks to raiding laundering plants. The UK has recently announced, jointly with Ireland, an improved new marker for rebated fuel, which will make it much harder to launder marked fuel and sell it at a profit.
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