A corrupt lawyer has been sentenced to 14 years’ prison in Australia's largest tax fraud case. 

Dev Menon, 39, has been handed a maximum prison sentence of 14 years after he was found to have used his legal expertise to aid the Plutus Payroll tax evasion scheme.

The NSW Supreme Court’s Justice Anthony Payne said Menon actively participated in the conspiracy for nearly two years, and deemed Menon's crimes to be of great seriousness and noted his lack of remorse. 

Menon will be eligible for release in May 2032 after serving a non-parole period of nine years.

The Plutus Payroll scheme caused the Australian Tax Office (ATO) to lose over $105 million before the Australian Federal Police (AFP) shut it down in 2017. 

Menon played a pivotal role in the conspiracy from June 2015 to May 2017. 

During this period, approximately $75 million, which should have been paid to the tax office, was redirected to Menon's co-conspirators, including the son of former ATO deputy commissioner Michael Cranston.

Justice Payne stated that while Menon was not primarily motivated by greed, he was an essential figure in the fraud. 

The judge said Menon's accounting and legal skills, as well as his professional reputation as a commercial and taxation lawyer, contributed significantly to the scheme's success. 

Menon was found to have taken deliberate measures to conceal the fraud, such as lying to authorities, orchestrating document forgery, discussing the destruction of evidence, and coaching others to provide false accounts to authorities.

Phone taps presented in court revealed Menon's belief that the scheme was too complex for detection. 

However, unbeknownst to Menon and his associates, the AFP had been monitoring their conversations for months. 

Justice Payne condemned Menon for exploiting individuals with drug habits and installing them as directors of Plutus's fraudulent subsidiary companies.

Menon displayed no remorse for his actions, indicating that he still believed the conspirators had not engaged in criminal behaviour. 

Justice Payne stressed that tax fraud is a collective financial harm to the community and has a corrosive impact on society. 

He said the Commonwealth would need to recoup the lost funds by extracting more taxation from other citizens in the present or future.

Menon's level of culpability in the fraud was deemed more significant than that of his co-conspirators, Lauren Cranston and Patrick Willmott, who received maximum jail terms of eight and nine years, respectively. 

Two remaining co-conspirators, Jason Cornell Onley and the scheme's architect, Adam Cranston, are awaiting sentencing, scheduled for August. 

Adam Cranston's father, Michael Cranston, the former ATO deputy commissioner, was acquitted in 2019.