In a rural Lancashire pub, over pints of Moretti, a 79-year-old man cheerfully outlines one of the most audacious tax avoidance schemes ever conceived in Britain. His weapon of choice? The common garden snail.
The Snail Farm Loophole
Terry Ball, a former shoe salesman from Blackburn who has made and lost multiple fortunes, has dedicated his later years to exploiting a legal technicality to deprive local councils of millions in business rates. His method involves setting up shell companies that breed snails in vacant office blocks, then claiming the premises are agricultural farms and therefore exempt from tax.
"They're sexy things," Ball chuckles in a broad Lancashire accent, describing the prolific breeding habits of snails. He explains that if left alone, two snails can quickly multiply into dozens. His operations span several locations, including a prominent office block on Old Marylebone Road in London, where snails quietly munch lettuce in boxes on the sixth floor.
Ball's companies, with names like Snai1 Primary Products (2023) Ltd, are registered for £35 each. He is the sole director but has no intention of filing accounts or paying taxes. When councils successfully liquidate one company for unpaid debts, he simply abandons it and starts a new one—a practice known as phoenixing. Westminster Council is currently seeking to recover more than £286,000 from Ball's companies linked to one property alone.
A Life of Fortunes and Feuds
Ball's story is one of rags to riches and a deep-seated grudge against the authorities. Born into postwar poverty in Blackburn, he followed his father into the discount shoe trade, eventually building a significant business. He claims radicalisation on business rates occurred in the late 2000s after a friend was crippled by taxes on an empty building during the financial crisis.
He cites former Conservative minister Michael Gove as an inspiration, waving around an annotated copy of a Gove speech that criticised the policy of taxing empty properties. Ball's own battles with the taxman led to bankruptcy and a nine-year ban from being a company director, which ended in 2016. "They got £600,000 off me. I'm going to get £20m off you," he vowed.
His breakthrough came after reading HMRC guidance at 2am one morning in the 2010s. He discovered that the legal definition of a 'fish farm' for tax purposes, clarified by a minister in the 1980s, includes sites breeding "molluscs of any description". This rule, designed to cover oyster farms, also applies to land-based snails bred for food.
Mafia Links and a Lancashire Hideaway
The story takes a darker turn with Ball's decades-long association with the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra. He claims his shoe import business in the 1970s led to a partnership of mutual favours with organised crime figures who controlled the port of Naples.
In the pub, Ball is joined by an employee, Giuseppe, a convicted member of the Naples mafia who served four years in prison. Ball then cheerfully outs himself as the unnamed British businessman who, in 2006, hid notorious mafia killer Gennaro 'Genny Earthquake' Panzuto in a Lancashire caravan park when he was on the run from Italian authorities.
"I hid him for years," Ball states, unprompted. He claims the arrangement "cost me thousands" and involved getting the fugitives jobs in local restaurants. Ball says Panzuto was astonished by how easy tax evasion was in the UK compared to the violent crime of the Camorra.
Council Crackdowns and New Schemes
Authorities are fighting back. In early October, Westminster Council enforcement officers raided the Winchester House office block, documenting Ball's snail farm operation. Council leader Adam Hug has called for a general clause to stop such business rates avoidance, labelling the snail farm a "ludicrous notion".
Undeterred, Ball is already diversifying. He is developing a new scheme involving "pop-up charity shops" to exploit another loophole, and has filled his Ribchester HQ with cheap goods to facilitate it. He insists his motivation is not vast profit but principle and "devilment".
As he approaches his 80th birthday, Ball shows no sign of stopping. Driving his Jaguar with personalised plates, he reflects that battling councils staves off the boredom of old age. "All my friends who have retired... they're just waiting to die," he says. "I've had a laugh. Every day, no matter what happens, I've had a laugh."
