Scotsman Sought in Kenya Over Sh119 Million Safaricom Fraud

A Scottish businessman convicted in a Sh3.39 billion VAT fraud in the United Kingdom is wanted in Kenya for fleeing the country with an unpaid debt of Sh119 million owed to telecommunications giant Safaricom.

Leslie Thompson, 63, from Bathgate, West Lothian, and his business partner Steven James Moran abandoned their Nairobi offices in 2016 and transferred their company shares to an offshore entity in the Seychelles in what court documents describe as “an engineered ploy” to escape their financial obligations.

Thompson’s firm, Iphone Global Systems Limited, had entered into a business arrangement with Safaricom in 2006 to interconnect their telecommunications networks through voice over internet protocol services.

However, a decade into the partnership, the company began defaulting on payments owed to Safaricom.

Court documents filed by Safaricom in Nairobi show that the telecommunications company was unaware Thompson and Moran had fled Kenya until it attempted to serve them with legal papers at their offices at Ad Life Plaza in Nairobi. The building was deserted.

Safaricom sought court permission to notify the two directors of the lawsuit through newspaper advertisements after all attempts to locate them in Kenya failed. The court granted the request. A Nairobi judge has since ordered Thompson and Moran to return to Kenya to answer for the debt, warning they would be held personally liable if they failed to appear.

Thompson’s legal troubles extend far beyond Kenya. In March 2024, he was sentenced to six years in prison in the United Kingdom and banned from serving as a company director for 12 years following his conviction in a complex tax fraud scheme.

The UK’s His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs uncovered that Thompson was a key player in a sophisticated conspiracy centred on Winnington Networks Limited, a company based in Crewe, Cheshire. Between 2011 and 2014, the network of fraudsters deliberately understated their VAT obligations by more than Sh3.39 billion through fake trading chains involving metals, electrical goods and telecommunications equipment.

Thompson recruited legitimate business owners to participate in the fraudulent scheme, using their companies to create false VAT returns. The conspiracy involved creating fictitious deal chains and even establishing two fake offshore banking platforms purportedly based in the Seychelles and Canada to produce convincing financial records.

Investigators secured crucial evidence when they recorded Thompson and other conspirators at hotel meetings in Manchester and Birmingham in late 2013, where the men openly discussed the fraud and how they could “invent the numbers” to falsely offset their VAT claims.

The decade-long investigation by HMRC, dubbed Operation Barbados, resulted in the conviction of 20 people across four separate criminal trials. The convicted fraudsters received combined prison sentences totalling more than 70 years.

Thompson’s wife, Beverley Thompson, 60, was handed a two-year suspended sentence in October 2024 for money laundering after investigators discovered she allowed up to Sh42 million to flow through her bank accounts. The couple enjoyed a lavish lifestyle that included two holiday homes in Florida funded by the proceeds of crime.

Their son, Andrew Collins, 41, who had changed his surname from Thompson, received a 22-month suspended sentence after pleading guilty to conspiracy to cheat the public revenue. He was also banned from acting as a company director for eight years.

Richard Las, director of HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service, described the case as an “incredibly complex fraud” that required years of dedicated investigation to unravel.

“The scale of the sentences and the significant director disqualifications show how seriously the courts have treated this sustained and sophisticated attack on the UK tax system,” Las said.

Safaricom has indicated it intends to pursue the debt through legal channels, including seeking to be joined in any bankruptcy proceedings Thompson and Moran may have filed in the United Kingdom.

The telecommunications company has not commented publicly on the status of the case or whether it has recovered any portion of the outstanding debt. Efforts to reach Thompson and Moran for comment were unsuccessful as their whereabouts remain unknown.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​