‘Dishonest’ boss of Telford firm jailed for crimes

Jason Tsai, the collapsed firm’s former managing director, had already been banned from being a company director for 13 years for having “caused or allowed” the company to “participate in transactions connected with the fraudulent evasion of VAT”.

Now the High Court of Justice has jailed him for 18 months for dozens of contempt of court charges. The case was brought by liquidators trying to tackle the collapse of Telford-based Changtel, many of whose assets have since been sold to a separate company, Entatech on Stafford Park.

In total, 52 claims were brought against Tsai, including failing to hand over and then using a Taiwanese passport, failing to declare his own interest in bank accounts and properties in Telford, Birmingham and Taipei, failing to disclose an interest in a £1.4 million loan, and failing to disclose the existence of bank accounts containing millions of pounds. Tsai was given prison sentences of various lengths for 30 of the 52 allegations against his name, to run concurrently.

In ruling against him, Mrs Justice Rose called Tsai “a thoroughly dishonest witness” who aimed to mislead the court.

“I regard Mr Tsai as a dishonest and manipulative person who has no qualms about fabricating important documents, lying to the court and expecting his work colleagues and family members to act dishonestly to assist him,” she said.

She added: “I believe very little of what he said, unless it was adverse to his own interests.”

In February, liquidators won an order freezing £24.7 million of Tsai’s assets, but when looking at computers as part of the investigation said they found has assets to be “far more extensive” than he had claimed.

Tsai in turn claimed that the assets belonged to family members, insisting he did not derive any benefit from them, but the court rejected that claim.

He was also told to turn in all travel documents, but said his passport was with his travel agent in order for him to gain a Chinese visa. But he travelled to Taiwan to meet his wife, who he claimed was receiving medical treatment.

During that time, however, his wife travelled to Singapore to transfer more than £8 million to a bank account in Taiwan.