Gino's Contraband

Gabrielle O’Donovan is a self-starter and has built a career as a change management professional. When UK Border Police at Heathrow seize 270,000 cigarettes destined for a certain Gino at Miki National Co. Ltd., Gabrielle receives related correspondence which looks like a scam. In time, Gabrielle learns that the UK tax authority - His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) - has decided she was the intended recipient. As Gabrielle is pursued, HMRC treats her as guilty until she can prove her innocence. Why are her human rights not being respected? As the case takes its toll on her, Gabrielle is advised that it is very difficult to 'prove a negative' (that she is not Gino) in a court of law. To compound matters, when her best friend confides that she is a victim of the HMRC Loan Charge Scandal and is being subjected to similar tactics, Gabrielle finds herself on suicide watch.

Gino’s Contraband is Gabrielle’s candid, eye-opening and often shocking account of the challenges of distinguishing scams from the legitimate, the impact of being wrongly accused by HMRC, the harm caused by sinister tactics employed by HMRC to invoke shame and guilt, and the psychological effect of being forced to prove her innocence in a supposedly democratic country. In her insightful book, Gabrielle also reveals how the contentious Loan Charge legislation informed how she too was treated, the industrial scale damage being caused by HMRC on society, and what - together - these and other 'guilty until proven innocent' cases say about the state of democracy in the UK.

Gino's Contraband highlights the urgent need for a Taxpayers' Bill of Rights to ensure fair treatment.