Tax enforcers have imposed a joint £109 million confiscation order on a fugitive Tayside fraudster and his on-the-run dad.
Geoffrey and Gareth Johnson are the subject of international arrest warrants after absconding prior to their trial.
HMRC has now told the fugitive pair that they must pay £109m immediately or a default prison sentence of 14 years will be added to their sentences.
The father-and-son pair were part of an 18-strong crime gang that stole £20m in a mobile phone VAT fraud.
They were involved in the carousel fraud, which stretched across Andorra, Dubai, Hong Kong, USA, Switzerland, Portugal and the UK.
The investigation by HMRC led to four criminal trials between 2012 and 2014.
The 18 gang members from Cheshire, East Sussex, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, North Wales, Staffordshire, Scotland and Spain, were given jail sentences totalling 135 years.
Gareth Johnson, 48, formerly of Turin, Forfar, was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2013 after being tried in his absence.
He was the principal controller behind Tectonics Holdings which played an integral role in the fraud as the money laundering arm of the operation through personal UK and offshore accounts.
He also had control of Coast Logistics which was another company used in the fraud.
Geoffrey Johnson, 72, of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being tried in his absence in 2014.
HMRC said he was instrumental in laundering the criminal proceeds of the fraud and greatly benefited from them.
Co-conspirator Sarah Panitzke, 42, of Barcelona, Spain, was ordered to repay more than £2.4m or serve more time in jail.
Panitzke is also on the run.
Alison Shelton, 43, of Staffordshire, who is serving a nine-year jail sentence for her part in the fraud, was ordered to repay £83,000.
Forfar man Albert Amritanand was another part of the gang and was sentenced to five years in jail in 2013.
He paid back half-a-million pounds to the public purse following a similar confiscation order imposed last year.
Kevin Newe, assistant director with HMRC’s fraud investigation service, said: “Confiscation orders totalling more than £114m have now been made in this case, and these latest rulings show that criminals may think they can escape justice by fleeing the country, but our investigations to reclaim their ill-gotten gains continue.
“We are determined that crime gangs such as this one should be prosecuted and then made to repay their criminal profits.”
Since sentencing, other gang members who profited from the fraud have appeared at Kingston Crown Court to face individual confiscation orders.