A new BBC podcast has retold the story of Arif Patel, the Preston businessman convicted of one of Britain's largest tax frauds, who has never spent a day behind bars despite a 20-year prison sentence. The Fugitive Fraudster Who Stole From You is now available on BBC Sounds, following the BBC's File on 4 Investigates programme into the case.

Patel, who once appeared on the Sunday Times Rich List with an estimated fortune of £105 million, ran a textiles company called Faisaltex. Investigators from HM Revenue and Customs found that the firm was at the centre of a carousel fraud, a scheme built on chains of fake transactions designed to steal VAT repayments from the public purse.

The fraud netted more than £33 million of taxpayers' money, and Patel's network attempted to steal as much as £90 million before HMRC blocked the remaining claims. When he appeared at Bolton Crown Court in 2011 to face charges including conspiracy to cheat the taxman, money laundering and false accounting, a judge allowed him to travel to Dubai while on bail. He never returned.

In 2023 Patel was tried and convicted in his absence at Chester Crown Court, receiving a 20-year sentence, and in 2025 a court made a confiscation order of £90.5 million against him. None of the money has been recovered, and Patel has been able to challenge the confiscation order from overseas. HMRC said it had seized more than £78 million of the gang's assets in the UK.

The BBC investigation also found a string of websites and social media posts presenting a Dubai-based businessman named Arif Patel as a successful philanthropist, some of them linked to an online reputation management company. Dame Margaret Hodge, the prime minister's anti-corruption champion, told the BBC that Patel should not be beyond the reach of the British justice system. A story published in 2024 reported Patel denying the fraud allegations.

Attempts to extradite Patel have failed, and he remains in Dubai more than a decade after leaving Britain.