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Judge Katz adjourned the confiscation hearing until Friday to hear further evidence about any assets he may have. Mr Hughes added that, since his release, Mazzarello would have been able to apply for leave to travel to the United Kingdom as there are no outstanding warrants for his arrest. Mazzarello now faces a confiscation hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act as prosecutors try to claw back any cash or assets he has. The total loss to HMRC between June 2008 and March 2013 was £46,579,257.32. The fraud enabled the Italian Wine Company to avoid paying both excise duty and VAT in the UK on wine sold on to shops such as Star and Bestbuy. He avoided paying VAT on an 'industrial scale' by selling cases under the counter for cash at The Italian Wine Company based in Neasden, northwest London.
Mazzarello was the frontman of a plot to dodge paying excise duty for nearly five years by covering up the importation of millions of bottles of wine from Europe. He sold cases under the counter for cash, which he then hid in the roof of the property Prosecutor David Hughes told the judge: 'They took over the enforcement of the sentence but at the time of the indictment the money laundering he was convicted of here was not an offence in Italy. It meant Mazzarello was released from a prison in Genoa in June after serving less than four years behind bars. Judge Philip Katz, QC,was told an Italian court 'took over enforcement of the sentence' and reduced the fraudster's term to just eight years. Today at a Proceeds Of Crime Act hearing at London's Old Bailey the mystery of what happened to him was finally solved. He was found guilty of one count of fraudulent evasion of of VAT and jailed for 14 years in his absence in July that year. Mazzarello, of Cricklewood, sent an email addressed to 'the most illustrious judge' claiming he needed to go and see his mother but had been missing since.
Livio Mazzarello, 61, skipped bail during his Old Bailey trial in 2017 and managed to get to the Italian port city of Genoa. A fugitive £46.5million wine fraudster who fled the UK before he was sentenced to 14 years escaped the majority of his sentence - after birth country Italy slashed his term.