9th February 2009

Jersey courts ponder accountant’s extradition

The Attorney General received extradition papers from the Australian government on 9 February 2009, asking Jersey to send accountant Philip de Figueiredo to answer charges related to money laundering and tax fraud.

De Figueiredo had already appeared in court several times since being arrested late the previous year, and on this occasion his representative warned the Jersey courts that he would need to consult an Australian lawyer, which would take time. Eventually, the court set a date in mid-June for the accountant’s extradition hearing, but it took until the end of the following year for him to leave the island, with his extradition taking place on Christmas day 2010 following an appeal.

A further two and a half years would pass before de Figueiredo was eventually sentenced for what Australian paper The Courier Mail called “one of Australia’s largest tax evasion conspiracy schemes, totalling more than $4 million.” The scheme had centred on using fake invoices to claim expenses and, according to News Mail, “de Figueiredo has pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiring to defraud the Australian government.”

According to the Jersey Evening Post on 8 March 2013, “Philip de Figueiredo was locked up by a judge at Queensland Supreme Court for helping to run a multi-million-dollar offshore tax evasion scheme involving a number of the country’s top businessmen.”

He was sentenced to six years imprisonment but would be released after two years and five months on a good behaviour bond.