A fraudster who duped the taxpayer out of hundreds of thousands of pounds has been allowed to keep his two luxury yachts after a dirty money probe.
Joseph Quinn was jailed earlier this year for stealing nearly £280,000 from HM Revenue and Customs - after buying one of his vessels from the government body.
Quinn touted himself as a philanthropist who climbed Kilimanjaro to raise money for a children's cancer charity.
But he was actually a criminal who cooked the books while director of four Scottish firms, netting £279,329.79 by submitting bogus claims for VAT repayments.
Quinn, 64, bought the twin-masted Isolda, which is valued at £302,000, from HMRC at an auction after it had been seized during a drug bust.
He also had over £90,000 in bank accounts and owned another yacht valued at £80,000. Quinn also had a number of properties as part of his £740,000 estate.
His assets included the yachts, a £440,000 home in Newton Mearns, near Glasgow, a £132,000 flat and a £220,000 property, both in Thornliebank, Glasgow.
Following his conviction, prosecutors targeted his assets, saying he had made £279,329.79 from crime.
They began a Proceeds of Crime investigation in an effort to strip Quinn of his profits, saying he had £741,639.54 in assets that could be seized and sold to pay back what he took.
Paisley Sheriff Court heard earlier this year that £100,000 of the £152,361.20 he admitted obtaining through a fraud against HMRC had been repaid and that a flat sale would clear the balance.
When Quinn returned to the dock on Wednesday for a Proceeds of Crime hearing, it emerged the balance had been paid in full.
Prosecutor Dana Barclay said Quinn had paid back the amount he admitted obtaining from HMRC.
Court documents reveal the money was paid back through the sale of properties, meaning Quinn has been allowed to keep both his yachts.
A source said: "It's incredible to think someone could be so brazen as to buy a luxury yacht from HMRC and then steal hundreds of thousands of pounds from them.
"His sentencing was delayed by nearly 18 months because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
"During that time the housing market boomed, with housing prices going up by 10 per cent this year.
"He ended up getting much more for his flat than he would have in previous years, which meant it was easier for him to pay back what he owed."
The court heard previously the fraud took place between February 2014 and December 2015, while Quinn ran firms based in Port Glasgow, Inverclyde.
Prosecutor David McDonald explained: "HMRC identified that the bank records offered no support to any VAT submission made by Mr Quinn, with £152,361.20 being claimed by Mr Quinn without any apparent foundation."
Quinn was arrested and interviewed by police, discussing each of the companies in great detail and admitting submitting false returns.
He had originally been accused of trying to illegally obtain £309,866.92.
But he pleaded guilty to obtaining £152,361.20 and was jailed for 16 months for the offence when he was sentenced in July.
The Isolda was involved in one of the biggest drug busts in Scottish history that led to the death of a customs officer.
The yacht was used to bring cannabis worth £10million to Scotland.
A gang of smugglers headed by Roderick McLean left Morocco with the three-tonne cargo in 1996.
They loaded the drugs onto the Isolda in Cadiz, southern Spain, then sailed to Caithness.
But customs officers had been carrying out undercover surveillance on the gang.
The Isolda had been tracked by spy planes using state of the art equipment on its journey to Scotland.
The drugs were then transferred from the Isolda onto another vessel, the London-registered Ocean Jubilee, when undercover HMRC officers swooped.
As the converted lifeboat was raided, customs officer Alastair Soutar, 47, of Dundee, was crushed to death between a clipper and the Ocean Jubilee.
The eight-strong gang including Edinburgh crooks McLean and Gary Hunter were convicted of smuggling drugs following a 54-day trial at the High Court in Dunfermline in 1997.
McLean received a 28-year sentence - one of the highest ever imposed by a Scottish judge.
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