A fraudster who ripped off customers by selling fake copies of Microsoft Windows from his home in Walton has been named on a list of criminals ordered to pay back money for their crimes.
Alexander Bell, 45, from Burwood Road, Hersham, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison by Kingston Crown Court in November 2006, for his part in the scam.
The court heard that Bell kept six-figure sums of cash at his home and also burned documents to try to destroy evidence against him.
His brother Jonathan Bell, also of Burwood Road, Hersham, John Palmer, of Oatlands Drive, Weybridge, and five other men from Sussex and Hampshire were also jailed.
Bell was also ordered to repay £2.3m at a later court hearing.
The Crown Prosecution Service has released the details of Bell and another 45 criminals from across the country who owe more than £1m.
They owe £173m in total. So far, only £29.1m has been recovered but the CPS could not say which criminals had paid money back.
Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “The CPS needs to be doing more to get this money back.
“They are allowing criminals to live of their ill-gotten gains rather than it being paid back in the taxpayer’s pockets where it belongs.”
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