More than £1 million has been recovered in Scotland as part of a crackdown on fraudsters selling puppies on the black market.
A taskforce was set up by HMRC in October 2015 to tackle dog breeders across the UK after welfare groups suggested tens of thousands of puppies were being reared in unregulated conditions and sold illicitly.
Officers uncovered fraudsters selling puppies on a mass scale and for huge profit.
Due to the underground nature of the activity, the sellers had failed to declare their sales.
In the west of Scotland, two unconnected puppy breeders were handed tax bills of £425,000 and £337,000, while a puppy dealer in the east of the country was handed a tax bill in excess of £400,000 as part of the probe.
Using a full range of civil and criminal enforcement powers, HMRC recovered a total of £5,393,035 in lost taxes in the UK from 257 separate cases since the formation of the taskforce.
Several arrests have been made as part of the taskforce’s work across the UK over the past four years.
HMRC is also involved in Operation Delphin, a multi-agency collaboration across the UK and Ireland, led by the Scottish SPCA, designed to tackle illegal puppy smuggling and its consequences.
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