Where is convicted fraudster, Arif Patel?
Criminals defrauding the tax system costs the UK billions of pounds in lost revenue each year.
The BBC’s File on 4 Investigates tells the story of one of the country’s most prolific tax fraudsters, who stole tens of millions of pounds of public money and seemingly got away with it.
In 2023, Arif Patel, from Preston, Lancashire, was convicted of attempting to steal more than £90m of public money and was sentenced to 20 years in jail.
The judge described Patel as being ‘breathtakingly arrogant’ and ‘totally dishonest’.
But Patel wasn’t there to hear this condemnation and he hasn’t served a single day of his sentence because he fled to Dubai more than a decade ago.

In this episode of BBC News: Behind the Investigation, Melanie Stewart-Smith speaks to journalist Ben Robinson, who tells the story of how he got onto the trail of the fugitive fraudster who stole from all of us.

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00:00 The fraudster who got away
00:55 Meet the reporter who chased the story for 20 years
01:29 Who is Arif Patel? The Preston tycoon
02:37 How the VAT carousel fraud worked
03:59 Selling Swiss hats to the Swiss
04:54 Hundreds of officers raid the empire
05:31 Allowed on bail to Dubai and never returned
06:12 “I’m a tiger, not a caged tiger”
07:56 Convicted in his absence: 20 years
10:05 The strange websites praising Arif Patel
12:56 A real photo shows his life of luxury
14:50 The anti-corruption champion reacts
15:54 Dubai’s response and final thoughts

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Video appearing to show the arrest of jailed mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been shown in a documentary on Iranian TV.

The British-Iranian mother has spent more than 1,000 days in an Iranian prison after being convicted of spying. She denies all the charges against her.

Last week, her husband revealed she was planning a hunger strike because she is being denied medical treatment.

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Serbia’s long-standing leader Aleksandar Vučić has admitted defeat to the student-led protest movement in snap parliamentary elections.

Preliminary figures from Serbia’s election commission indicated a record high turnout, which commentators had suggested would favour the student movement. Celebrations erupted after Vučić conceded.

Vučić called the snap elections after two years of protests triggered by the collapse of a train station canopy in the city of Novi Sad, which killed 16 and was seen as emblematic of corruption and negligence.

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Iran has been rocked by daily protests since a young woman, Mahsa Amini, died in custody after being detained by Iran’s morality police for not wearing her headscarf correctly.

Both women and men, who want a life free from the strict rules of the Islamic Republic, have been taking part.

We know Mahsa Amini’s story, but what about the everyday risks and dangers that women face, as they continue to protest?

Over two and a half months, women have been sending their thoughts as voice notes, writing and drawings to the BBC’s Saba Zavarei.

Here are their diaries, with names changed for their safety.

This report contains disturbing scenes.

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If the polls are to be believed, voters are feeling sore about rising grocery prices, the cost of gas and diesel and the unfinished military action against Iran.

Immigration, once the President’s strongest issue, is beginning to put strain on the coalition he built in 2024 to win back the White House.

Hispanics, particularly in Texas and Florida, thought Donald Trump had promised to close the border and focus on deporting only those migrants who were criminals. But unease has spread as ICE crackdowns have targeted a much wider group of Latinos.

The BBC’s Chief North America Correspondent, Gary O’Donoghue went to Texas to speak to those Latinos and to rural Republicans as they are being urged by the President to vote in these elections for the House and the Senate.

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