Senior City workers caught up in HMRC tax probe

THREE senior investment bankers are among the 16 people arrested last week as part of a tax fraud investigation, it has emerged.

Vincent Walsh, until recently a director of Royal Bank of Scotland's UK equities business, Jason Edinburgh, a senior equities trader at RBS, and Michael Elsom, a senior trader at broking firm Marex Spectron, were among the men arrested last Wednesday in a series of raids resulting from an HM Revenue & Customs investigation into claims of tax fraud, The Telegraph reported.

HMRC said the arrests concerned the financial affairs of the individuals, and were not related to their work for the bank. They have not been charged.
The arrests are the result of a three-year investigation by HMRC into people suspected of evading tax by using a film finance loophole.

In a statement at the weekend HMRC said: "As a result of an ongoing HMRC investigation into tax-related criminal offences, HMRC has arrested a number of people, some of whom work for UK banks.

"This investigation relates to the actions of the people arrested in relation to their own financial affairs, and is not connected to the business activities of the banks."