FOUR company directors who were jailed after a £17.5m tax fraud were taken to court by a new national prosecution body.

Customs and Excise said last night it was one of the first cases in the region to be prosecuted by the recently-established Revenues and Customs Prosecutions Office (RCPO).

Businessmen Michael McGuiness, Leslie Heads, Darren Bell and Peter Levitt were jailed at Teesside Crown Court, on Friday, after they admitted laundering the proceeds of a £68m mobile phones scam.

The gang acted under the auspices of Teesside companies Main Attack Ltd, Bavcrest Ltd, Chicane Traffic Management and Teesside Transport Management.

The gang used a scam known as missing trader intra community fraud, which involved mobile telephones being brought in to the country tax-free and sold on without VAT being paid. Proceeds of the fraud were laundered through the company accounts, netting the men thousands of pounds in profits.

A Customs and Excise spokeswoman said the defendants were taken to court by the RCPO, an independent prosecuting authority, which reports to the Attorney General, and is responsible for prosecuting some of the largest drug and fraud cases in the UK.

McGuiness, 37,of Redcar, east Cleveland, received four years and was ordered to repay £26,159 plus £75,000 prosecution costs.

Heads, 47, of Ingleby Barwick, Teesside, was jailed for 15 months and told to pay back £24,726, Bell, 35, of Brotton, east Cleveland was jailed for 15 months and told to pay £6,000 and Levitt, 58, of Hartlepool, was ordered to repay £1,600 and jailed for a year.