Three tax advisors have been arrested as a result of an investigation by HM Revenue & Customs into a suspected ÂŁ132 million ($173 million) fraud involving offshore trusts.

The three men, who were not named for legal reasons, conformed quite closely to the average age profile for financial advisors. They consisted of a 56-year-old from Greater Manchester, a 67-year-old from Derbyshire and a 59-year-old from Warwickshire. They are suspected of involvement in a scheme that used Jersey-based offshore trusts to allow individuals to dodge around ÂŁ132 million in income tax.

On its website HMRC announced: “These arrests show that we are determined to tackle not only those suspected of tax fraud, but also the professionals who we believe abuse their position of trust to help them do it.”

Earlier this year, in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal, HM Government announced plans to hold corporations criminally liable for failing to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion, either in the UK or overseas. It will model the new offence on s7 Bribery Act 2010, which was once thought to be ground-breaking but has had little effect in the last six years.