I have to admit I think this is really a rather sweet little scam.

Many of the purchases were Range Rovers worth £62,000. These could be bought
by a player for £53,000 once the Vat had been deducted. The middlemen would
“buy” the car back for perhaps £55,000, leaving the player with a £2,000
profit.

The car would then be bought by a dealership for £57,000 who could sell it on.
Although brand new, the car would now be secondhand, which meant it no
longer attracted Vat. The dealer could then sell it cheap for £60,000 and
still make £3,000 extra profit. The spoils were even greater on some of the
more expensive luxury cars such as the Bentley GTC, which can cost more than
£145,000 new.

It’s all made possible because the disabled do not pay VAT on new cars. The thing is, I’m really not all that certain that what they did was illegal:

A spokeswoman for Revenue and Customs said it is a fraud to buy a car Vat free
for “personal use” when it was in fact intended to be sold on.

Well, yes, but there’s nothing that says how long that personal use needs to be for. However, given that some people were buying 40 and more new cars a year, I have a feeling that such a defense wouldn’t get past either a judge or a jury.