UK Conservative Party donor Peter Virdee charged with bribery

AKA Batman.

Peter Virdee is a British businessman. He is also known as Hardip Singh. And as Batman. He is a director of many companies. He claims that the company he co-founded, B&S Property is worth £4 billion.

Virdee has met (and had his photograph taken with) Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip, King Charles, Al Pacino, Mickey Rourke, Jazzy B, Rihanna, Steven Gerrard, Lang Lang, and Usain Bolt.

He has a large collection of luxury cars, including a Bugatti Veyron and a Rolls Royce with the number plate 51 NGH - in 2006, the number plate apparently changed hands for £254,000.

Conservative Party donor

Virdee has given £100,000 to the Conservative Party in the UK, and £2,000 to the Labour politician Preet Gill. In 2011, when the Conservation Party first accepted money from Virdee, he was already a convicted criminal. According to The Times, “In 1995 he was jailed for deception, attempted deception and theft.”

The Conservative Party continued to accept money from Virdee in 2018, despite the fact that on 10 January 2017, UK police arrested Peter Virdee in Heathrow airport. Virdee faced extradition to Germany. He was accused of fraud and €125 million in unpaid VAT on sales of carbon credits.

Carousel fraud

The carousel fraud involved a company importing carbon credits free of value-added tax (VAT) from one EU member state to another. The company then sells the carbon credits with VAT included in the price. A series of companies and countries is often involved. The final transaction involves one of the companies reclaiming VAT from the government. The fraudulent company then pockets the VAT and disappears.

Here’s how Interpol illustrates carbon credit carousel fraud:

Europol estimates that between 2008 and 2009, about €5 billion was lost to the carousel fraud in carbon credits.

After his arrest in 2017, Virdee’s lawyers successfully challenged the arrest warrant. Virdee avoided facing trial in Germany.

In February 2020, prosecutors in Frankfurt am Main again sought Virdee’s arrest. Virdee kept his identity hidden during the fraud, but according to German prosecutors, Virdee “substantially organised and directed” the carousel fraud. He was known by the scammers as “Batman”.

In December 2021, the Spiegel reported that Virdee had been sentenced to more than three years in prison. But Virdee’s social media suggests that he didn’t actually spend any time in prison in Germany.

Bribery

Between 31 January 2015 and 26 January 2017, as part of their investigations into suspected VAT fraud, the German authorities tapped Virdee’s phone calls.

And in March 2017, the German authorities handed over recordings of Virdee’s intercepted phone calls to the National Crime Agency in the UK. Some of the transcripts became public during a 2018 hearing involving Virdee at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

The transcripts reveal Virdee talking about making payments to high level Caribbean politicians:

On 23 May 2024, Virdee appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court, where he was charged with bribing a foreign public official. Between January 2015 and July 2017, Virdee is alleged to have bribed Asot Michael, Minister of Tourism, Economic Development Investment and Energy for Antigua and Barbuda, in order to benefit PV Energy Ltd.

Virdee is a director of PV Energy. The company was also charged with failing to prevent bribery.

Virdee was bailed to appear at Southwark Crown Court on 20 June 2024.